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iWon.com Launches with Comprehensive Search Engine Capabilities and Partnerships

Strategic Insights

— 2 min read

iWon.com, one of the fastest growing websites in history, announced alliances with leading search and technology companies, including Ask Jeeves, Inc., Inktomi, LookSmart, RealNames, and Fact City. The new iWon search engine leverages Inktomi's GEN3 architecture, providing a comprehensive and easy-to-navigate search index of the most relevant documents on the Internet. Users can access this index, as well as other features such as a professionally edited directory, popular site listings, and instant access to music files and news.

Key Takeaways:

  • iWon.com launches with a comprehensive search engine, leveraging Inktomi's GEN3 architecture, which combines leading relevance technologies and WebMap(tm) database, and includes 500 million of the best documents on the web.
  • The iWon search engine features a professionally edited directory, created with LookSmart and Inktomi, with over 1.8 million hand-edited sites categorized into over 170,000 categories.
  • Users can save time with Ask Jeeves' Popularity Search(sm), which analyzes previous search queries and results to determine the most relevant sites for people's search requests.
  • iWon Search offers fast access to millions of music files, including hundreds of thousands of MP3 files updated daily, leveraging Inktomi's media search database.
  • In the coming months, iWon Search will partner with Fact City to provide users with an Internet first - a way to ask questions and instantly receive answers instead of a list of web sites.
  • Tens of millions of facts will be accessible, with every fact attributed to an accurate, reliable source, and users will receive links to related facts and statistics for further investigation.
  • iWon.com attracts one out of every nine people who visit the Web from work and one out of every ten people who visit the web from home (Media Metrix, May).
  • iWon.com provides users with world-class content and functionality with leading partners such as Associated Press, CBS, Inktomi, CBS MarketWatch, RealNames, Reuters, TheStreet.com, Travelocity, and WeatherNews Inc.
  • As an added incentive, iWon gives away to users, $10,000 every day, 30 prizes of $1,000 every week, $1 million every month, and $10 million on Tax Day.

Statistics:

  • 500 million of the best documents on the web are included in the iWon search index.
  • Over 1.8 million hand-edited sites are available in the iWon directory, categorized into over 170,000 categories.
  • Inktomi's media search database updates hundreds of thousands of MP3 files daily.
  • Tens of millions of facts will be accessible through iWon's partnership with Fact City.
  • iWon.com attracts one out of every nine people who visit the Web from work and one out of every ten people who visit the web from home (Media Metrix, May).
  • iWon.com has given away over $22 million in cash prizes to date.

Sources:

  • Business Wire, July 17, 2000
  • iWon.com press release
  • Ask Jeeves, Inc.
  • Inktomi
  • LookSmart
  • RealNames
  • Fact City
  • Media Metrix
  • NPD Search and Portal Tracking Study

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