Innovative Technology Helps Consumers to Save, Search and Share Online Information.
LookSmart has acquired Furl.net, an innovative service that enables users to save a full-text copy of any page on the Web, then search and share that data. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Furl allows members to simply and securely save copies of online articles, product information, electronic receipts, favorite Web sites and other interesting or important pages. Members can instantly find what they need by searching their personal archive and the entire Web, through the Furl toolbar or directly at Furl.net, from any computer. Furl also provides many options to share and discover compelling information via email subscriptions, RSS feeds, blog integration and personalized recommendations.
“Furl’s technology and desktop toolbar are a perfect fit with LookSmart’s search strategy,” said Kevin Krim, vice president of Web properties for LookSmart. “Similar to our parental control software product Net Nanny and our FindArticles service, Furl.net helps people search and interact with high-quality sets of data specific to their needs.” LookSmart plans to maintain Furl.net as a free service, generating revenue from relevant sponsored listings on search and content pages. The company will leverage its advertising and search resources to build on Furl.net’s already compelling features. “To that end, we’re pleased to announce that we’re providing 5 gigabytes (GB) of storage for each user’s public archive, enough for tens of thousands of archived and searchable items.”
It’s simple to begin “Furling” and requires no software to download. After registering for free at Furl.net, the user can install the Furl toolbar, or simply add a “Furl It” button to their browser’s toolbar. Furl is currently compatible with a variety of browsers including Internet Explorer, Mozilla and Firefox on both Windows and Mac operating systems. As a trusted and essential utility for its users, Furl.net has been engineered for a high degree of security, stability and privacy.
Furl.net solves a major problem for Web users. “Until now, the only way you could save a permanent copy of a Web page was to print it out, save it to your desktop or email a copy of it to yourself,” said Mike Giles, founder of Furl.net. “With Furl, you can easily save any page and then find it again instantly by searching the full text of your personal archive. This way, even though the Web site changes or the page you want is deleted, you still have a copy that you can find when you need it. It’s a personal search engine for every user.” Early Furl.net users are seeing immediate benefits. “Furl.net creates what I’ll call a ‘PersonalWeb,’ and having your own PersonalWeb is a very cool thing,” says John Battelle, founder of Wired Magazine and The Industry Standard. “Every page you care about is now saved, and is searchable. How I wish I had Furl while I was researching my book for the past year.”
Murdok | Breaking eBusiness News
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