Sebastopol firm aims to make sense of Web

Armed with a patent for its technology, Sebastopol startup KnowledgeFilter Inc. is ready to market software designed to organize vast amounts of content on the Internet.

The system lets Web users determine which content gets the most visibility.

It's part of the Web 2.0 movement, which has spawned user-driven Web sites such as MySpace, Flickr, YouTube and Digg. Web 2.0 refers to next-generation technology that lets users share information online.

"We saw a need for sorting and ranking all this content on the Web," said Michael Heumann, a former high school science teacher and documentary video producer who heads the company.

Heumann said the system automatically elevates the most useful and reliable information, creating a better pool of knowledge. "Group moderating causes the best stuff to rise to the top," he said.

With just five employees, KnowledgeFilter is dwarfed by giant search engines such as Yahoo, which has 9,800 full-time workers. And it is operating on a shoestring budget compared with Google, which raised $4.3 billion in a stock sale last September.

But despite its small stature, Heumann said the company still has a bright future because Google and Yahoo search systems haven't kept pace with Internet users.

"It was great when users were only looking for the most popular Web pages, but things have changed radically in the last three years," he said.

User-generated information such as Blogs, forums, video and photos are flooding the Web, Heumann said, and users need a better way to access and organize it.

Heumann said the Sebastopol company's patented software takes searches to the next level, allowing Web users to filter the results.

Many Web sites employ user ratings and comments, he said, but KnowledgeFilter sorts results according to multiple criteria and level of support.

Billy White, a former Netscape marketing director who serves as KnowledgeFilter's chairm11an, said the technology has a variety of applications.

It can link Web users to traditional media such as newspapers, radio and television, allowing them to provide feedback and choose the best user-generated content.

Commercial Web sites can use the system to custom-sort information for visitors, create focus groups and build databases of customer information.

White said KnowledgeFilter hopes to sell or license its technology to Google, Yahoo or another big Internet player. It has not yet released the software to the public.

"I see us partnering with one or more of the large companies that can develop this technology for the benefit of everybody who uses the Internet," he said.

Heumann said the company needs a successful Internet partner because its technology is user-driven.

"Our software needs a lot of traffic to shine," he said.

Yahoo and other search companies already are adopting such techniques. Last year, Yahoo introduced a service that allows Web users to answer questions posed by other consumers. Microsoft has plans for a similar tool.

KnowledgeFilter was founded in 1999 but stalled a year later when the Internet economy nose-dived. But the company applied for a patent and continued to develop its software, Heumann said.

Last month, KnowledgeFilter received a U.S. patent for its search and ranking technology. The 1999 patent predates other ratings-based Web search systems, making KnowledgeFilter's software potentially valuable to large Internet players, the company said.

Other backers are Bill Atkinson, an Internet pioneer for Apple Computer, and software developer Keith Cooley of Coolware in Palo Alto.

KnowledgeFilter is headquartered in a small office in downtown Sebastopol, next to Screamin' Mimi's ice cream store.

The company's Web address is www.knowledgecenter.com.