Clinton Stumps For Search Engine

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton was on hand Monday night to deliver the keynote address at the New York City unveiling of a new search engine by the Accoona Corporation.

Accoona, which has significant backing from China's state information agency, believes its search engine will greatly improve the relevance of search results. Accoona's engine relies on artificial intelligence technology to examine the meaning and context of words on a page, as opposed to simply matching terms to Web pages.

Web search will also be complemented by a vast online directory of business contact information, comprised of hundreds of millions of records on millions of companies worldwide. Accoona said it spent most of 2004 building and acquiring this data.

The company believes its search engine will facilitate business relations between China and other international businesses through its exclusive 20-year partnership with The China Daily Information Company, an official Chinese government agency, and www.ChinaDaily.com.cn, the official and largest English-language Web destination in China.

Clinton said the Web played a large role in facilitating the transfer of information between developing nations like China and the rest of the world.

"We live in a highly interdependent world," Clinton said, "and for most of us that has brought enormous benefits." He noted that there were 50 Web sites when he took office in 1992, 50 million by the time he left office in 2000, and "a countless number" now.

"Our world has been made smaller," he said, but added that "this interdependence has so far been a mixed blessing." For example, he said, the Internet also played a crucial role in facilitating the attacks of September 11.

Clinton also told the audience that Accoona's attempt to connect Chinese businesses to the rest of the world will "help spread the freedom of knowledge" in China and other developing nations. "There's a larger social purpose here," he claimed. By facilitating commerce between nations, President Clinton said "you minimize your chances of 10 to 20 years of destructive conflict over things like water, oil, and territory, and you maximize your chances of peace and harmony."

China's current Internet population is 80 million--only about 7 percent of its population. The Chinese government partnership grants Accoona the largest English-language database of Chinese business contacts at 5 million, and will be considered the premiere Internet search site for what is the fastest-growing economy in the world. The company expects more than 10 million unique users per month in China--currently one-eighth of the country's active Internet population.

"Accoona will provide global companies with the information they need to do business in this burgeoning market," said Accoona Chairman Eckhard Pfeiffer. He said Accoona's artificial intelligence technology makes it "several step functions more advanced and revolutionary" than other search engines.

Among the search engine's other features, Accoona's QuickProfile extrapolates business contact information from search results. Clicking the "info" box next to results immediately delivers full contact, employee, and sales volume information for the company in question. Within the keyword box, users can also emphasize certain words by checking a box below each keyword. Highlighted words are crawled first, followed by the secondary terms.

Accoona expects to make money primarily by selling sponsored links on its site--which will be powered by Yahoo! subsidiary, sponsored listings provider Overture Services--and by licensing its search engine to other Web sites, and bundling its engine with third-party software.

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