Search Engine Watch, a blog covering search engine news, recently reported on LeapFish’s recent real-time and social search engine launch. The post by Frank Watson notes that “LeapFish offers a start page for web users where they can watch their Facebook and Twitter accounts as well as set up feeds for news, entertainment, sports and other services”

Excerpt from the Article:

“The site offers some very interesting possibilities. It has some similarities to iGoogle but has managed to integrate social media faster than the search giant ”

Click here to read the entire Search Engine Watch Article:

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/091112-224356

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

Unfortunately, these days you can’t help but hear dreary news when it comes to the economy and how more and more people are losing their jobs.  Fortunately, at LeapFish we have a bit of a better hiring story to tell.  LeapFish is hiring and looking for talent in many areas!

We believe our people are our power and when it comes to attracting the right people, we have given a lot of thought to the careers that motivate professionals. We offer our team members intellectual power and independent insight. This in turn creates an entrepreneurial environment where a professional can reach their potential sooner and explore a full range of opportunities.

LeapFish encourages an open and communicative workplace, as well as an environment of growth and learning. We offer a great opportunity to learn and grow along with competitive salaries and comprehensive benefits.

If you seek an environment where you can embrace challenge, make an impact and enjoy significant growth, Join us!

We are currently accepting resumes for the following opportunities:

• Inside Sales Representative
• Regional Sales Managers
• Client Services Representative
• Project Manager
• Network Engineer
• Sr. Network Engineer
• Software Engineer
• Sr. Software Engineer

To apply online visit us at http://www.dotnextinc.com/Careers.aspx

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

LeapFish and Make-A-Wish Foundation^® team up with Twitter users to help fund an ill child’s wish to go to Disneyland

PLEASANTON, Calif. – November 16, 2009 – LeapFish has joined forces with the Greater Bay Area Make-A-Wish Foundation^® to adopt an ill child’s dream and help make that dream come true. Tweet-a-Cause, a social media initative, will give Twitter users the power to help fund an ill child’s dream to go to Disneyland, one Tweet at a time.  LeapFish will make a donation per Tweet sent to the Make-A-Wish Foundation until $10,000 has been raised and the child and his family can go to Disneyland. LeapFish is inviting people to tweet to raise awareness of children that need your help.  LeapFish will make a donation to create magic and make their wishes come true.

Jacob, age 4, has a rare and life-threatening disease that has affected him since birth. He has one big wish in life –- to go to Disneyland with his family.  LeapFish and the Make-A-Wish Foundation have joined forces to help fund his wish through Twitter.  “We are privileged to be able to make a difference in young Jacob’s life by helping to fund his wish,” said Ben Behrouzi, CEO of LeapFish. “What better tool than Twitter to get the community involved and allow everyone to share in making a difference for someone,” said Behrouzi.

The Make-A-Wish Foundation of America is the largest wish-granting organization in the world. The Foundation has granted wishes to more than 174,000 children with life-threatening medical conditions nationwide. Through the Adopt-A-Wish^® program, a donor, such as LeapFish, can cover the entire cost of a child’s wish. To raise awareness of the Adopt-A-Wish program and to help get the social media community involved in granting an ill child’s wish, LeapFish is sponsoring the Tweet-a-Cause and Make-A-Wish campaign.

The campaign will run from November 16 through November 27, 2009. LeapFish invites people to Tweet-A-Cause to honor Jacob’s wish.

For more details on the campaign and how to help visit LeapFish.com/MakeAWish

About LeapFish

LeapFish is an evolved search engine that captures the traditional, multi-media and real-time Web, through a single, connected search platform for both searching and sharing content.  Founded by Ben Behrouzi (co-founder of Reply.com), LeapFish is a privately held, 100-person corporation headquartered out of CARR America Corporate Center in Pleasanton, California. For more information, visit blog.leapfish.com.

About Make-A-Wish

The Make-A-Wish Foundation grants the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions to enrich the human experience with hope, strength and joy.  For more information, visit www.makewish.org.

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.