SEM Synergy, Bruce Clay, Inc.’s weekly podcast on WebmasterRadio.fm, recently featured an interview with LeapFish CEO Ben Behrouzi addressing the significant changes on the Web in the past few years, thanks to social networking and community platforms.

The broadcast covered the current state of the Web, consumer behavior and LeapFish’s new offering in the Search space.  SEM Synergy reported “The recent public launch of LeapFish boasts a number of features that help users search and share content across popular sites, locate real-time content and create a custom search experience fitting of online life today.”

Excerpt from the Article:

“LeapFish has been designed with the new Web in mind, culling content from traditional, social and real-time Web sources into a customizable interface that acts as a dashboard for the Web”

Click here for the Bruce Clay radio broadcast and article :

http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/archives/2009/11/information_con.html

Bub.blicio.us, a Web 2.0 news blog run by social media expert Brian Solis, recently covered LeapFish’s new social and real-time search engine. The bub.blicio.us post highlights the LeapFish move to real-time and social search, and its potential to create an “invaluable hub for information sharing.”

Bub.blicio.us writes “Leapfish is hoping to bring the power of social networking to the search scene, powering immediate gratification for our information needs” in reference to the integrated sharing feature for all content and search results to major social sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Digg and more.

Excerpt from the Article:

“LeapFish is looking to work both the recommendation and search ends, providing sharing tools directly from the site so you can both search and share content you find interesting. The potential for creating a recommendation engine around this could be high, and I think it’s interesting that LeapFish is taking the search engine approach to address this potential.”

Click here to read the entire bub.blicio.us article:

http://bub.blicio.us/leapfish-making-comeback-with-real-time-search/

USA Today recently reported the launch of LeapFish’s new social and real-time search experience stating “First site that lets consumers both contribute and search for information”.  USA Today covered LeapFish as part of their coverage of major changes occurring in the real-time search space.

USA Today technology reporter Jon Swartz writes “the race to offer instant Web search” is on, and LeapFish is a prime competitor. In an article published earlier this month, Swartz highlights the need for real-time search results, such as searching live Twitter postings and multimedia content.

Excerpt from the Article:

“There’s a new race in the Internet search business and, like most races, it’s about speed. Start-ups including LeapFish… hope to lap the field by supplementing conventional search results, such as what you’d find on Google, with instant access to social networks including Twitter.”

Click here to read the entire USA Today article  :

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/2009-11-03-real-time-search_N.htm

LeapFish was recently featured by MediaPost, a top online media, marketing and advertising news site, as “iGoogle with a Social Twist.” On November 5th Mediapost covered the launch of LeapFish 2.0, the release of LeapFish’s new search engine that captures multimedia, social and real-time search.

Excerpts from the article:

MediaPost expressed “If you haven’t heard about LeapFish, you soon will” and reported on the numerous innovations that LeapFish introduced to the burgeoning real-time and social search space.

Here is what MediaPost had to say about the new LeapFish Personalized HomePage; “Registering as a member allows you to customize the home page with widgets, Facebook and Twitter feeds. In fact, more than 25 widgets will become available today, including Celebrity News, Hulu, The Onion, and Yahoo Sports. Those who log in can build a social media profile, a sort of LinkedIn for social media.”

MediaPost also covered LeapFish’s new search engine stating; “LeapFish offers two search options — traditional and real-time — to provide a variety of perspectives on news and events happening across the Web. News pulls from a variety of sites. The real-time results from Twitter update as they are posted.”

To read more about MediaPost’s LeapFish covereage visit:

Search Engine LeapFish Merges Real-Time Data and Social Content

So what makes a Spooktacular LeapFish Halloween Bash? Great Employees, Great Food, Creative Costumes, Fabulous Decorations and a Costume Contest with awesome prizes!

This time last year the office was celebrating Halloween and gearing up for the launch of LeapFish Beta. This year will be hard to forget, from the life-size kissing booth to the scariest of Zombies, LeapFish truly captured the spooky spirit of Halloween and everyone had a great time.

Congratulations to the Jungle a.k.a Halloween Allstars who not only won a private preview of LeapFish 2.0 prior to the highly anticipated launch this November but also took first place as the winning team in our Costume Contest!

A big thank you to all LeapFish employees who participated in this years festivities! Without our people LeapFish is nothing. Every LeapFish employee plays an important role and we are thankful to be part of a loyal team of people  and it is through them that we’ve been able to perform month after month & continue to celebrate our success.

Our Team at LeapFish wishes everyone a safe and fruitful Holiday Season and looks forward to an even bigger and better 2010!

So what exactly is a Tweet Up? A Tweet Up is a geeky term for a networking event that takes place in person beyond the 140 characters of a “tweet”.  In other words a “tweet up” is an in person “meet up” for those that have connected via Twitter. This event has gone above and beyond the expectations of the Silicon Valley Tweet Up (SVTweetUp) founder Michael Brito, Social Media Strategist for Intel. After a few short months SVTweetUp has grown into a premier social event attracting bloggers, leading PR  professionals and social media evangelists including Brian Solis, published author.

LeapFish agreed to sponsor the 3^rd Silicon Valley Tweet Up with special book signing by Brian Solis. Solis is globally recognized for his views and insights on the convergence of PR, Traditional Media and Social Media & is considered one of the original thought leaders who paved the way for Social Media.

Key influencers in the media attending the TweetUp were excited to engage and discuss LeapFish. The LeapFish team conducted several interviews with key media outlets including top tech publication ZDNet and top Social Media authors Brian Solis & Shel Israel.

Michael Brito, a top influencer in the Social Media, Search and  Tech Industry also took the time to review LeapFish prior to the event, he was delighted with the search experience stating “What I dig about LeapFish is that you can pretty much find every piece of content related to any specific search query”.

In closing, our team at LeapFish would like to extend a big thank you  to Michael Brito & The Anissa Lopez Foundation for putting on another succesful Silicon Valley Tweet Up.  Great work!

The buzz is building about LeapFish.  Here are just a few testimonials from thousands of customers and the growing base of search users.

LeapFish AdvertiserTestimonials:

Michael M. - Hawaii

“After purchasing keywords in the first couple weeks I received several phone calls, shook hands with 11 people and had many serious buyers and tons of conversions!  I not only use LeapFish as my homepage but also have told my friends and family about how easy it is to search and get great permanent advertisement.”

Jason M. - Minnesota

“I purchased 2 keywords and I am very happy with the results I’ve received so far and the quick customer support.  We are very happy to be a part of the new world’s fastest search engine and are excited at what the future holds for LeapFish”

PATRICIA S - OCALA, FL

“My experience in working with Leapfish.com has been exceptional.  Very efficient, knowledgable and helpful.  It is a pleasure working with such intelligent professionals who are always available to assist me.  Thank You!”

Jan S. - Business Coach

“I started getting hits immediately and as I am the only person advertising for these keywords right now, I am getting all the traffic. It’s a win/win situation. Thanks for the opportunity Leapfish!”

LeapFish Search Engine Buzz :

Twitter is ablaze with LeapFish chatter.  LeapFish continues its steady growth as more and more adopt the worlds newest search experience.

As LeapFish grows in popularity we receive an increasing amount of testimonials from LeapFish advertisers as well as the users of the new multimedia search engine.

Here are two unsolicited videos from avid LeapFish users that felt compelled to do a video about their experience with LeapFish from an advertising and search perspective.

Jan Shimano is a LeapFish advertiser and states in the video: “In ½ hour I have used my daily budget for PPC on other search engines”.

In a written testimony we received from Jan she goes on to state “I started getting hits immediately and as I am the only person advertising for these keywords right now, I am getting all the traffic. It’s a win/win situation. Thanks for the opportunity Leapfish!”

Susan Wood uses LeapFish for her daily searches and states in her video: “LeapFish has some really great features” and “ I use LeapFish as my default search engine”.

Thank you Jan and Susan for the great videos.

SearchCowboys connected with Ben Behrouzi to capture the difference between the future of LeapFish and that of traditional meta engines and aggregators.  The exchanged produced a great Q&A reflecting the developmental trajectory of LeapFish.

Why another aggregator?

LeapFish is more than just a simple aggregator that displays websites from other search engines.  LeapFish is a multimedia search engine that combines and renders the best of the web in the form of sites, videos, news, images, blogs and more from the most popular and widely accepted destinations including Google, Yahoo, Youtube, CNET, Yelp and a growing list of over 200 other authorities in a single search interface.  We believes its time for multimedia search.

What makes Leapfish different from all the others?

We live in a time with a very multimedia and sophisticated Internet and we believe its time our search tools function in a similar way.  LeapFish is undertaking a progressive and systematic application of advancements and innovations in search over the next several years that empowers users with the ability to access more of the multimedia web as well as interact with the data they find in a whole new way.  Currently LeapFish users benefit by having an engine that does the heaving lifting for them in more complex searches by querying the major online authorities in videos, sites, imagery and more in one search query.  Additionally, since LeapFish is always checking other major online destinations, the engine conveniently surprises users with information that they wouldn’t have normally been aware of had they used a traditional engine.

What is your business strategy? How will you make money?

LeapFish offers ad programs in its growing search engine.  Advertisers are able to take advantage of a growing list of ad programs including Keyword Position Sponsorships that offer marketers the unprecedented opportunity to purchase ad space without having to pay per click or per impression.

What are your future plans?

LeapFish intends to tackle search 2.0 over the next several years with innovations in data variety and availability, interface sophistication, real-time search, personalization and content interactivity producing a new customizable dashboard to the web.  LeapFish 2.0, the latest release, will arrive this August and will offer users unprecedented access, command and interactivity with the web.

How do you see the ‘war of the search engines’ evolve with engines like Wolfram and Bing entering the market?

Wolfram is a content producer, Bing is an aggregator of data.  Without integration, data like Wolfram Alpha’s will be lost in the information overload of the web.  The web requires a new breed of search tools that integrate a variety of valuable data such as Wolfram Alpha’s and others into a single sophisticated search portal that in essence allows users to turn the information overload into readily and appropriately accessible data.  Bing’s latest initiative will educate users precisely of that, but without continued integration of the variety of the web, Bing will be deemed as a more sophisticated version of search 1.0

Where is Bing in your results anyway?

Bing will be available with LeapFish 2.0 this summer.

Why do you think people would be switching from, for example, their regular “Google searches” to Leapfish?

Google has built a reputation of commanding precision access to a tops down organization of websites, which is extremely valuable.  But is that everything everyone cares about in the world of web 2.0?  The user interactivity demonstrated by the recent events in Iran and with the late Michael Jackson, the tremendous number of new portals including Wolfram Alpha, and the continued loss of accessibility due to the growing information overload is evidence that we need a more sophisticated gateway and interface to the web.  We believe a growing number of searches will be answered more completely with LeapFish.

For many Americans, the passing of legendary news anchor Walter Cronkite on Friday brought up fond memories of tuning in to CBS during the 1960s and 1970s to hear “the most trusted man in America” present the Nation’s latest news and current events. Cronkite, who spent 19 years delivering the evening news to households across America, became one of the country’s most well liked and credible sources for information in a pre-Internet era. Through war, political scandal, the assassination of John F. Kennedy and NASA’s landings on the moon, Americans found themselves looking to Cronkite’s daily reports as their primary means of keeping apprised of current events and gathering the most relevant, real-time details as historical events unfolded on their televisions.

Cronkite was known for his objective reporting, and stood out as a leader in breaking news to the public as quickly as possible. When reporting the shots fired at JFK’s motorcade, he began speaking about the story before the cameras could be set up and in 1973, as Cronkite reported on the death of Lyndon B. Johnson, he appeared on screen while simultaneously holding a telephone conversation in order to relay the details of the story as they were told to him by Johnson’s Press Secretary. Evidently, Cronkite recognized the public’s interest in real-time access to important news and developments and provided timely reports whenever possible.

In honoring Cronkite’s career and dedication to providing up-to date information, it seems timely to kick off the countdown to our own launch date with our first official hint of what’s to come in our upcoming release of Leapfish 2.0: real-time search!