iWon.com Becoming Most Comprehensive and Easy to Navigate Search Engine on the Internet

Business Wire,  July 17, 2000  

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Business/Technology Editors

IRVINGTON, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 17, 2000

Leading Relevance Technology and Search Index and Key Alliances

Launch iWon.com to the Top-Tier of Search Engines

Internet portal iWon.com, one of the fastest growing websites in the history of the Internet, today announced alliances with several leading search and technology companies. iWon also announced the addition of Inktomi's(R) media search database and GEN3tm architecture, a scalable search index of the most comprehensive, highly relevant documents on the Web, making iWon Search one of the most comprehensive and easy-to-navigate search engines on the Internet. iWon's search alliances include industry leaders such as Ask Jeeves, Inc. (NASDAQ: ASKJ), Inktomi (NASDAQ: INKT), LookSmart (NASDAQ: LOOK), RealNames and Fact City, the web's first "fact-finding engine."

The new iWon search engine is designed to get people to the information they are looking for by providing relevant and accurate results, all organized into an efficient easy to use interface.

With iWon Search, Users Can:

- Access Most Relevant Index of Documents on the Internet: The

default search index at iWon leverages Inktomi's GEN3

architecture, which combines leading relevance technologies

and WebMap(tm) database and includes 500 million of the best

documents on the web. The index is constantly updated and

refreshed with new content, offering users highly accurate

search results and new services.

- Save Time with a Professionally Edited Directory: The new iWon

Directory, created with LookSmart and Inktomi, allows visitors

to access over 1.8 million hand-edited sites categorized into

over 170,000 categories.

- Find Exactly What They Need: iWon Search saves people time and

effort by using Internet Keywords from RealNames. With

Internet Keywords, people can instantly find the Web sites for

major companies, brands, and products just by typing Internet

Keywords, like "Panasonic DVD" or "Ford Explorer", into iWon

Search.

- Find the Most Popular Sites on the Internet: iWon Search gets

people to what's popular through a new partnership with Ask

Jeeves. iWon is utilizing Ask Jeeves' Popularity Search(sm),

patented technology that analyzes the activity of millions of

previous Internet search queries and results to determine the

most relevant sites for people's search requests. iWon, using

Ask Jeeves' technology, can now present results in Top 10

lists of the Web's most popular sites and related searches.

People using iWon Search save time by benefiting from work

already done by previous searches.

- Locate Music Files Instantly: iWon Search offers quick access

to millions of music files including hundreds of thousands of

MP3 files updated daily, leveraging Inktomi's media search

database. iWon Audio Search locates actual music files, not

merely the website on which they're located, so that people

quickly and efficiently find what they are looking for.

- Get All the News: Through the Inktomi relationship, iWon will

offer comprehensive news search capabilities from

Moreover.com. Moreover.com aggregates news and information

from 1,500 web sources in near real time, and then assembles

webfeeds in more than 200 categories. This gives users

comprehensive, update to date, organized news.

- Find Facts Fast...In the coming months, iWon Search will make

searches even faster, easier and more relevant. Unlike any

other Internet search engine, iWon is partnering with Fact

City, the web's first "fact-finding engine." iWon will provide

users with an Internet first - a way to ask questions and

instantly receive answers instead of a list of web sites. Tens

of millions of facts will be accessible, with every fact

attributed to an accurate, reliable source. Users will even

receive links to related facts and statistics in order to

investigate further.

"We are very excited about the enhancements to iWon Search," said Jonas Steinman, iWon Founder and co-CEO. "We have one goal - to help people find the information they are searching for as quickly as possible. We are confident that bringing together these 'best-of-class' partners makes iWon Search one of the best on the Internet."

About iWon

Launched 10 months ago, iWon currently attracts one out of every nine people who visit the Web from work, and one out of every ten people who visit the web from home (Media Metrix, May). iWon is also ranked #1 in user satisfaction among the leading search engines and portal sites (NPD Search and Portal Tracking Study). iWon provides users with world-class content and functionality with leading partners such as Associated Press, CBS, Inktomi, CBS MarketWatch, RealNames, Reuters, TheStreet.com, Travelocity, and WeatherNews Inc.

As an added incentive, iWon gives away to users, $10,000 every day, 30 prizes of $1,000 every week, $1 million every month and $10 million on Tax Day. By simply using the site to search the Web, check email, go shopping, read the news, or perform other regular Internet activities, iWon.com users earn entries with practically every click. To date iWon has given away more than $22 million in cash prizes. For details and official rules, visit www.iwon.com.