Silicon Valley Search Startup Comes Out of Beta & Debuts First Real-Time, Multi-media, Social Search Engine Combining Searching and Sharing

PLEASANTON, Calif. – November 5, 2009 – LeapFish, an upcoming search and social media innovator, today unveiled the new multi-media and real-time search, communication, and sharing platform that gives consumers the most convenient, fun, and personalized way to experience and share the traditional and real-time Web – the new “Living Web.”

The LeapFish search experience empowers consumers with the ability to manage the two things they do most often online:  “search” and “share.” “Real-time and social are major movements and its time consumers are empowered with an ability to share to the real-time and social Web when they are most engaged – while searching the Web,” said Ben Behrouzi, Founder and CEO of LeapFish.

The new search platform seamlessly combines the ability to search and share real-time and traditional content in any media format in a single interface across a range of different sites (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, Digg).

“Aside from the Web’s growing size and variety there is an emerging duality of “real-time” and “traditional,” which now requires a completely different search experience.  One that includes both the content and the “contributor” in the search experience, such that both traditional and real-time searching and sharing are integrated seamlessly in our use of this Living Web,” said Behrouzi.

The new LeapFish search experience offers consumers a real-time search engine, a technically advanced customizable personal homepage, more multi-media results from the entire Web and the ability to share any piece of content found online.

LeapFish Search Engine Features :

Real-Time Search Engine : A fresh multi-media real-time search engine capturing results from all containers of real-time content (e.g., Twitter, YouTube, Twitpic, Flickr).

Searching and Sharing : Easy and convenient sharing features empower users to merge traditional content into the social and real-time Web as they search and find content anywhere online (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Digg).

Variety of the Web : Delivering rich multi-media content from the deep and wide new Web via integration of leading authorities in website aggregation, videos, images, news, blogs, tweets and much more on every search query (e.g., YouTube, CNN, Twitter).

Personal Internet Dashboard : Technically advanced customizable personal homepage allowing consumers to build their own dashboard to the Internet by adding multiple news feeds, blogs, applications, tools and more (e.g., Facebook Application, Twitter Application, Mashable Feed).

Until a few years ago consumers came to the Web to just search for simple information.  Now the Web is a place where people come to also share information.  Information today that is multi-media and more complex in nature.  “LeapFish refers to this new place as The Living Web, and has developed an evolved search engine to help consumers get the most from it – a service to help consumers Live the Web,” said Behrouzi.

To try the new search experience for yourself, visit http://www.leapfish.com/.

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!

Ben Behrouzi, LeapFish Founder & CEO, recently wrote an article on the key characteristics of real time search, providing insight into the implications of bottoms up content creation and why it is critical to the evolution of search.

Entire Article Below:

If you don’t understand why the Real Time Web is huge, you will soon.

Thanks to micro-blogging sites like Twitter, a constant stream of human-posted content has infiltrated the Web.  This growing infiltration has created a bottoms up approach to content creation that via the progressive support of rapidly developing applications has and will continue to empower every individual to co-create what is deemed as “important” on the Web.  The Real Time Web serves as both the database that informs us of what is happening right “Now” and the human touch to the content that will compete with the traditional algorithms for what is deemed as “valuable” content to us all.

Its challenges lie in the filtration and mass integration of both the content and the act of sharing to the Real Time Web.  There remain major aspects of the Web that have not yet integrated “searching” and “sharing” of the Real Time Web, including traditional search.  But as filtration and integration progress the Web will take the form of a living breathing database.

Here are 5 reasons why Real Time Search will help the Real Time movement change the Web and your experience forever.

The “Now” Factor

We saw it with Michael Jackson’s passing.  We saw it with the Iran Protests and we see it more and more everyday  — the Real Time web provides us with what is happening right “Now” and with vivid detail from around the globe.  “We” is driving the “Now” factor.

We Become Co-Creators

The Real-Time web offers us the ability to become co-creators in not only content but also in what is deemed important.  Why?  Because we decide what is worth sharing, discussing and having opinions on.  This behavior serves as a natural selection of valuable content.  Certainly the current web allows for creation of content, but what is deemed as important/valuable is mostly left up to a few individuals, organizations and a bunch of robots.  The Real-Time web, once fully integrated, will change that.

Humans vs Machines

Have you ever clicked on blue links that lead you to a piece of content dating back to a year ago? Search results lose relevancy each day due to the amount of new content hitting the internet. Spiders, web crawlers and engines decide what content is relevant via algorithms and those results can be manipulated via intelligently structured content (SEO).  Real-time search enables users to receive information via conversations and people instead of machines.  Take a look at your web results today.  Would you rather receive cold content determined by algorithms or what the crowd and people value as good and bad?

Facebook Factor

With over 300 million users creating and wrapping themselves around content, once Facebook opens up its search API to the web what do you think will happen?  Better yet do you think there is value in being able to search a database of 300 million users’ opinions and experiences?  Searching Facebook may be the factor that tips the overall experience of the web into one that is very different than today.  Facebook may be the tipping point to where bottoms up (sharing & contributing) will go head to head with tops down (crawling & optimizing)

A New Breed of Search Engines

If there existed a search engine that was capable of aggregating and rendering results based on what was shared, peoples opinions and conversations, would you be interested in that search engine?  If you knew that there were 6 conversations that provided a fantastic account of a design firm you were considering would that be more valuable to you than the top 3 links on your current search engine results?  Would you have more value for SEO based search results or human conversation driven results?  How about both?  Real-Time search, once developed, will render a new breed of search engines that will capture this new value the New Web has to offer.

At the moment, Real Time Search is only in its infancy, as is the Real Time web.  Twitter and the like are simply representations of a big movement that will continue to occur with the creation of more similar services, more adoption of those services and more integration of those services.

What is clear is that our daily use of the Real Time Web’s driving platforms — Twitter, Facebook and the like — is unprecedented.  The Internet is no longer simply just a disconnected 3^rd party container of tops down aggregation, “We” is now part of its determination.  And, search as we know it will soon change to accommodate, thereby delivering a completely different experience of the Web.

Silicon Valley Search Startup Plans to Launch Game Changing Real-Time and Multimedia Social Search Engine in the Coming Weeks

PLEASANTON, Calif. – October 15, 2009 – LeapFish, a respected pioneer in multimedia search, today announced plans to unveil a new multimedia and real-time search, communication and sharing platform.  The vastly evolved search engine will fundamentally enhance the way people both search and share information on the Web today.

In recent months, real-time communication has emerged as a major focus for the world’s biggest and most innovative Web companies; from Web and search giants like Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo, to innovators in social media such as Facebook and Twitter.  The LeapFish platform will be a new milestone in the consumer Web marketplace.

The near 100 person company announced that the new search platform has been under heavy development in 2009 by its lead engineering team, including developers from Ask.com.  Exact details surrounding a feature set or how the new search platform works have not yet been released.

Launching soon, LeapFish will begin presenting previews of its new search platform in late October.

About LeapFish

LeapFish is a new multimedia search engine that captures the variety of the web in a single search platform. LeapFish is founded by Behnam Behrouzi, also cofounder of Reply.com.  LeapFish is a privately held corporation headquartered out of CARR America Corporate Center in Pleasanton, California. For more information, visit blog.leapfish.com.

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!

Own a website?  Interested in making some extra cash?

LeapFish is empowering all website owners with an affiliate program that generates up to $500 in monthly income with absolutely no upfront or monthly costs.  We know what you’re thinking, “sounds too good to be true?…” Not at all.  But don’t take our word for it, take a look at what Sean Gagne has to say about the LeapFish AffiliateProgram.

Dear LeapFish;

I have been an affiliate marketer for over five years.  If there is one thing I have learned it’s that the key to becoming a winner in affiliate marketing is developing multiple streams of revenue.

Since bringing leapfish.com on board I have been extremely pleased with my results. You really do have all the markings of a world class outfit.

I received my first payment with out a hitch and continue to develop a strong income stream with the leapfish.com search bar.

Thank you for providing me with an opportunity to put more money in my pocket.

The thought that I am paid for every single search is astounding.  No longer do I have to wait for a search to take place then hope my client clicks on an ad before I get paid.

In five minutes I had my search bar in place and now have a completely hassle free extra $50.00 per month and I haven’t had to touch it since.

This to me is the best kind of affiliate program – The one that runs it’s self.

Yours truly

Sean Gagne

http://affiliatemarketingplaybook.com

So in the end, it’s not too good to be true.   To sign up as a LeapFish Affiliate visit the Affiliate Center. The more people that know about your widget the more you’ll make!

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.

Search Engine Strategies (SES) is the premier Search Engine Conference hosted in seven major cities worldwide. This year’s event had an incredible turnout with over five thousand attendees including bloggers, journalists, and search marketing professionals.

Key influencers in the media attending Search Engine Strategies were excited to engage and discuss LeapFish. The LeapFish team conducted several interviews with key media outlets including top Search publications  including SearchEngineWatch, WebProNews, SEOMoz, Bruce Clay, and SearchEngineGuide.

LeapFish also agreed to partner with WebMasterRadio, the official radio broadcasting network for the conference, as a sponsor of SearchBash taking place in Downtown San Jose at Club Pearl. SearchBash is the highly anticipated evening social event, and this year was one to remember. With well over two thousand attendees LeapFish had a unique opportunity to promote Search in a fun and exciting way.

This year’s Searchbash was set to the theme of the 1951 Disney film classic “Alice in Wonderland” & was soon turned into a LeapFish Wonderland. LeapFish made a huge splash at the event, LeapFish beachballs became a highlight of the event providing airborne entertainment above the dancefloor!

In closing our team at LeapFish would like to extend a thank you to Incisive Media for putting on Search Engine Strategies and WebMasterRadio for creating a Wonderland in the heart of downtown San Jose.

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.