Setting its sights on Google, Yahoo, Pittsburgh company launches site

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Online search engine upstart Vivisimo Inc. is setting out to convince the masses that Google Inc.'s vaunted technology isn't the most efficient way to find things on the Internet.
The little-known Pittsburgh company is taking aim at Google and other industry leaders such as Yahoo Inc. with a new search engine called Clusty.com.
The search engine's name refers to the clustering technology that Vivisimo has refined to sort search results into different categories related to the initial search request.
For instance, entering "San Francisco" into Clusty.com's search box produces a set of general results at the center of the Web page, with a list of more specific categories, such as "Bay," "Hotel," "Art," "University" and "Giants" featured at the left. Clicking on any of the subgroups delivers a new list of links in the center of the page while still preserving the different groups.
Vivisimo already has attracted a cult following among the online cognoscenti who use a sample search engine offered on the company's Web site. The site handles about 6 million search requests per month -- an amount that Google processes in less than an hour on a typical day.
Despite its low profile, privately held Vivisimo turned profitable two years ago, Valdes-Perez said. The 20-employee company, seeded by a $1 million grant from U.S. National Science Foundation, collects most of its revenue from licensing its technology to other Web sites.
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