ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, April 3, 1996 TAG: 9604030015
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG
SOURCE: ELISSA MILENKY STAFF WRITER
Not too long ago the computer community frowned upon advertising on the Internet. Today, it is just another part of cyberspace.
Internet Business Technologies, a start-up company founded seven months ago in Virginia Tech's Corporate Research Center, hopes to capitalize on just that. The company recently developed an Internet search engine, called LocalLink, that will find businesses from Blacksburg to Boston with a few clicks on the computer keyboard.
IBT specializes in designing home pages, which are a type of electronic broadsheet on the Internet where a computer user can post or obtain information.
"We want to link the people to the information," said Tony Weasler, an IBT programmer. "We want to take the information from the Internet to their lives."
Search engines, which help you to find specific information on the Internet, work by first amassing listings of sites on the World Wide Web, one of the fastest-growing portions of the Internet. Internet users can then find these web sites by using the search tool, which looks through its own database to find the information. These databases constantly are increasing.
Some of the more familiar search engines now available include Yahoo and InfoSeek. IBT President Robert James said these national search tools "try to encompass the whole world in their service."
"They have so much noise, it's hard to find anything useful," he said.
LocalLink's database contains only businesses and services, though they have been culled from all 50 states. All of these businesses must be local - a national company will be accepted onto the database only if it wants to advertise a specific location.
Internet users search for the information by first identifying the specific state, county, city, town or even ZIP code. The LocalLink home page has a map you can click on, or you can simply type in the geographical information.
"We wanted to make it as simple as possible so anyone could use it," Weasler said.
IBT employees spent three months amassing more than 8,000 listings for home pages that represent everything from restaurants, hotels and theaters to antique dealers by scouring the Internet. The next step is to publicize the search engine enough that businesses will begin contacting IBT on their own to be included in the database.
James compares LocalLink to the Yellow Pages. Internet users and businesses do not pay to use search engines. Businesses can, however, pay IBT to design an advertisement that will appear in addition to a link the its home page.
To check out LocalLink yourself, use this Internet address: http://www.ibt.net/ll/
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