Attending SXSW will give the LeapFish Team an opportunity to interact with social media thought leaders and early adopters in the online community. The Team has already scheduled meetings with Robert Scoble, tech-enthusiast, & Pete Cashmore, founder of Mashable.com.

SXSW has been known to increase organic adoption of emerging technologies, for example in 2007 Twitter was unknown to the masses prior to thier appearance at SXSW. Twitter was up against a site called “Dodgeball”,a location based check-in service, as  a breakout hit at the conference. Twitter went on to win several awards and shocked the online community with a new way to network.  Surprisingly, Dodgeball was not adopted and fell off, now this year the spotlight is now on the creators of Dodgeball, for their latest creation Foursquare, a new location based social application with a gaming twist.

Geo-Locating technology was ahead of it’s time in 2007 but this shows how trends in the online community can shift based on needs and interests. LeapFish was described as an alternative to Google and Bing, recently coming out of Beta in 2009. As the web evolves LeapFish continues to work with the social media community, applying innovations based on needs and interests. This year the talk of the town is real-time search and geo-locating technologies, two areas that LeapFish is currently developing and innovating.

If you would like to meet with a member of the LeapFish team please send a @ reply to @LenaShaw or @LeapFishMedia.

If you’re attending SXSW, visit The Plancast List of Events for event details.

See you there!

The University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business recently conducted a study on the relationship between social media and small business. The study showed that nearly one in five small business owners are integrating social media into their business practices, and 75% have a profile or fanpage on Linkedin or Facebook.

The study also goes on to show that small business owners realize the unparalleled access to potential customers through the power of social media.  For example, local businesses with a storefront can use social media resources like Yelp to engage with potential customers. Search combined with social media has provided a new realm of marketing and lead generation. Say you plan a trip to San Francisco and you want to find a good Thai food restaurant. You can simply type in “Thai Food San Francisco, CA” on LeapFish, and you will see the top 3 recommended Thai food restaurants in San Francisco.

The evolution of the real-time web has also added a new vehicle for free targeted promotion.  Twitter enables small businesses to engage with potential consumers in real-time. Small business owners use Twitter to create brand loyalty by providing value and a face to the product. You can also engage with small business professionals that share similar experiences; SmallBusinessTrends.com provides a list that acts as a directory for all small businesses Ultimate Small Business Twitter List . Joining a community of Small Business owners provides a space to discuss strategy and share incite as changes occur in your industry.

Small business owners can also capitalize on the power of free promotion by setting up a blog or content page. They now have the power to join the conversation by providing meaningful incite. “The two primary reasons people use the web are to find solutions to their problems and to be entertained” said Denise Wickman. Simply follow the three E’s: Educate, entertain and engage, and you’ll be on your way to becoming a thought leader in your industry.

However, not all small business owners have the time to blog. Setting up a content page or social hub provides another form of free promotion.  On LeapFish you can set up a profile page to include your Twitter stream, profile information from Facebook and Linkedin, blog roll, images, and videos all in one page, consider it a convenient and optimized snapshot of your business at no charge.

With minimal effort you can turn your business into a living breathing brand online. LeapFish makes it easy for your potential customers to find all of your social media content in one destination.

The Super Mixer brought local talent, business, and non-profits together with well over 350 guests in attendance. People were excited to discuss LeapFish’s growth, job opportunities and the innovative ways LeapFish is improving search on the new web.

LeapFish would like to thank the team at Bay Area Business Link for putting on another successful event and encourages all companies to take the time to research ways to become a green company. Green companies will play an integral part in the preservation of our environment moving forward, the time is now & the environment will not wait.

Please see below for a list of resources.

Business.Gov

Sustainable Business

Natural Resource Defense Council

The Green Office

TreeHugger Green Business & Politics

Green Business Articles from AllBusiness.com

LeapFish recently integrated Topsy.com, a search engine that finds the most talked about links on Twitter and organizes them by popularity and influence. Users now have the most popular and influential links on Twitter identified for them.

For example, during the Winter Olympics thousands of conversations are occurring, hundreds of articles & blogs are being written, and millions of URL’s are being tweeted in real-time. Users want to know what’s happening now, who’s winning, the medal count, and injury reports as they occur. People want news now, not tomorrow. However this content must be accurate, the most accurate content is what users will share and that is how Topsy adds a new level of relevancy to LeapFish real-time search.

On LeapFish if you do a search for Winter Olympics, you will see breaking news, recently dugg articles , recent photos, recent videos, real time tweets , and the most popular content being tweeted in real-time on the web (shown below). Since we post photos & videos from sites like YouTube and Flickr live in real -time,  you might even find content from fans live at the games, content you wouldn’t have found anywhere else – streamed to you automatically in real-time.

Traditional search engines provide a different perspective on real-time search, displaying content within search results. For example  if you do a search on Google  for “Winter Olympics” you may see breaking news at the top of the page, then if you scroll down 4-5 links you will see a space for streaming real time content (shown below). LeapFish displays real-time content separate of traditional content in an easy to use interface, this interface provides a simple of way of determining relevancy and gives users the choice of searching traditional or real-time content.

As the web evolves, LeapFish will continue to innovate real-time search making the new web easier and convenient.

PLEASANTON, CA (February 11, 2009) – LeapFish announced today that its multimedia search engine continues to grow in user base and that it anticipates more than 20 million searches in 2010.  The company reported strong early adopter growth in 2009 having reached a 10,000 Alexa rank in one year.

“We are seeing a great growth trajectory in the number of users setting their homepage to LeapFish,” said David Bruggeman, Vice President of Marketing. “LeapFish’s versatile homepage and its deep search results are serving as a great tool for searching the new multimedia web.”

The company reported that at its current growth rate and with its new partnerships, the search engine anticipates more than 20 million searches to be performed in 2010.  “Through search engine optimization, our growing affiliate network, partnerships with strategic software vendors and our continued organic adoption we are growing user base by large multiples this year,” said Behnam Behrouzi, president and CEO.  “Our product advancements in 2009 have helped gear the engine for an even bigger year in 2010,” he said.

In 2009 the company made substantial advancements and innovations to its growing search engine including; real time search, deeper search results, personalized homepages, content sharing features and proprietary Twitter and Facebook applications, that have helped grow the engine from an Alexa traffic ranking of 150,000 to 10,000 in less than one year.    “We are the only search platform searching all that users care about in the new web with over fifty providers including Google, Yelp, Twitter, Youtube, Mashable, Topsy, Wikipedia, and many others,” said Bruggeman.  “The innovations and data integrations from 2009 have set LeapFish apart and are clearly reflected in our Alexa traffic ranking,” he said.

The company also reported growing success with its unique ad model that boasts zero cost per click fees.  “Thousands of advertisers are securing high demand keywords that can deliver ROI in just a short period of time,” said Bruggeman.  “Over 80% of our advertisers renew their sponsorship for one year or more,” he said.

“My experience with LeapFish has been unbelievable. Since purchasing two key words from LeapFish, our website is getting quite a bit of viewing.  Sales are getting much better and the exposure is larger than I ever expected,” said advertiser Chad Levinger, of Temecula California.

LeapFish plans to release a secondary ad program to advertisers this spring.  For more information visit www.leapfish.com

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. LeapFish is a privately held corporation headquartered out of CARR America Corporate Center in Pleasanton, California. For more information, visit blog.leapfish.com.

The dawn of a new era in search has arrived. To make search relevant for today’s web user, any player hoping to stay relevant in the search space can no longer ignore real-time search. The dominant search players, including Google, Bing, and Yahoo have taken note, each rushing to launch real-time search features and stay in the game.

This month, Google announced that its relevance-ranking search algorithms are now being used to sort through live posts on Facebook, MySpace, FriendFeed, Jaiku, Identi.ca and, of course, Twitter. Google understands how important it is to be a leader in real-time search if they hope to remain on top of search in 2010.

Following the lead of Google, last week Yahoo added a real-time search function into its search results late. Yahoo said whenever there is a “spike” in interest in a particular topic across the Web, its search algorithms would be able to detect that and would mix relevant tweets about that topic into standard search results. With a partnership with Microsoft’s Bing almost finalized, the two companies will need to face Google and other real-time search players head on for a chance in the next generation of search.

Launched in November, LeapFish’s real-time search engine was at the start of the real-time search trend that has heated up over the last month. Our successful promotional video (below) for LeapFish’s November launch was followed by promotional videos from some of the biggest names (above) on the web marketing real-time search and what it means to our new web.

It is very clear that the quest for relevant sources of real time content will become increasingly sought after. Integrating micro blogging sites such as Twitter is only the beginning, new channels of communication will continue to add relevancy to our search experience online acting as a catalyst for change and innovation.

We are more connected and involved in the evolution and growth of the web than we ever were before.  The new web is here and it will not wait, however it will require new tools to interact with the web that you love.