According to the Wall Street Journal, RealNames Corp., which tried to make a business out of allowing web users to surf the web by subjects and keywords rather than URLs, is closing. The company
reportedly laid off its 83 employees at the end of last week, following a decision by Microsoft not to renew a contract that allowed Internet Explorer users to locate websites by typing in generic
phrases and keywords into the browser address bar. Microsoft said that supporting the service was "becoming more difficult, from the standpoint of the business model and the user experience."
