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Venture Launched That Builds on Search Engine Results

Posted on: Monday, 26 June 2006, 18:00 CDT

By Don Dodson, The News-Gazette, Champaign-Urbana, Ill.

Jun. 24--URBANA Former Argus Systems Group President Randy Sandone is venturing into business again, this time with a browser tool developed at the University of Illinois.

Sandone has teamed with several other business people to launch Visual Information Technologies Inc., a company that's commercializing browser technology developed by Dan Kauwell and others at the UI.

The technology gives users a graphical visualization of search engine findings. Users can then build on those findings and share the information with others via the Web.

For now, the company is based at 136 W. Main St., U, in the building that houses the Phebus & Koester law firm.

Joe Phebus acts as chief counsel for the firm. Also involved are Sandone, the chief executive officer; retired Maj. Gen. Emile Bataille, the president and chief operating officer; Kauwell, the chief technology officer; and Dan Holder, the chief financial officer.

Sandone said Visual Information Technologies Inc. was founded and chartered in December and started operations in January. The company is finishing the process of getting patent rights and a license for the technology from the UI.

The browser tool, which goes by the name "OOwah!," enhances the online search process, Sandone said.

"We take search results from four search engines Google, Yahoo!, MSN and Ask and deliver a graphical representation of them," he said. "It's a visual picture of the results, as opposed to text."

The tool allows users to manipulate, organize, sort, cluster and color-code the results. It also allows users to add videos, photos and other information to the search space in effect, taking data and turning it into "actionable knowledge," Sandone said.

In addition to the browser tool, a "knowledge sharing" component allows users to create content and share their search spaces on a Web site, where others can comment on the spaces and rate them.

Users "can also e-mail the search spaces to their friends or put them on a share site for the community," he said.

Sandone describes it as the "logical next step" to MySpace.com, with the content being more "knowledge-oriented" and "less expressive" than MySpace.

Giving an example of how the tool can be used, Sandone cited a Vincent Van Gogh enthusiast who created a search space that was a timeline of the artist's productive life. The space showed images of Van Gogh paintings in the order they were produced, with Web links to the museums that display them.

It's like a "digital canvas," Sandone said.

"At its core, this acts as a productivity tool enriching and enhancing the search experience," Sandone said. "It's also a great tool for creating content for personal use or sharing with others. We're going to have it available in three or four weeks for a trial so people can download it, try it out and give feedback."

Sandone emphasized the benefits to being able to harness results from four different search engines at once.

"You can combine the search results from all the engines into one space and you can bring into the same space the results from multiple search queries," he said.

Sandone said he became acquainted with the technology while working as a branch manager for Science Applications International Corp. in Champaign. Bataille a retired chief information officer for the U.S. Strategic Command who now lives in Cary was hired as an SAIC consultant, and the two of them evaluated the technology to see what applications it might have for the Department of Defense.

"We tried to do something at SAIC, but didn't go too far with it," Sandone said. "It was still in the development stage."

Sandone left SAIC last fall to pursue the technology and "jump into the frying pan" of starting a new business.

"I'm an incurable entrepreneur," said Sandone, who spent a decade running Argus Systems Group, a Savoy-based company that produced PitBull software. PitBull provided Swiss banks, government agencies and other clients with "trusted operating systems" that make possible secure communications and transactions.

Sandone said the founders of Visual Information Technologies Inc. have put $150,000 to $200,000 into the venture and hope to raise another $1 million to $2 million in seed capital. They expect business revenue to come from two sources: software license sales and online advertising, with the latter eventually expected to make up most of the revenue.

Kauwell, who demonstrated the technology at a UI iEmerging session four years ago, said he was "fortunate to find the right bunch of partners to help me" commercialize it.

"Certainly, the technology was good in 2002. It's better now, with a lot greater access to high-speed bandwidth in homes and businesses," he said. "Also, there's been a very large movement toward social content, with social users creating content and sharing it on the Web."

Kauwell worked as a researcher at the Beckman Institute and in the UI's Department of Computer Science. Joining him and Sandone as full-time employees of the company are software architect Andrew Janssen and Gerry Wagner, who has done much of the Web site work.

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Source: The News-Gazette

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