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Pingar for Personalized Search

November 2, 2009

A happy quack to the reader who alerted me to Pingar, a SharePoint centric content processing vendor with offices in New Zealand. The company, founded in 2006,  announced its enterprise search solution for SharePoint in mid October 2009. According to the company:

“The intelligent enterprise search tool that can be embedded into the upcoming release of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 will take the browsing out of browsing,” says Pingar’s co-founder and Managing Director Peter Wren-Hilton.

I stumbled on the notion of taking “the browsing out of browsing”. I use a browser to browse. If don’t want to browse, I use another method. Nevertheless, the system, according to the company:

[the] solution goes inside data documents, finds the content the user is seeking and then places it into a dynamically generated PDF or XPS document, rather than just presenting a list of links like the traditional search model. Pingar’s solution also sorts the search into categories to minimize reading times.

image

Pingar.com

In a Pingar report, a hit includes a back link to the original source document.

According to the Tauranga Eastern Link Newsletter:

Pingar has developed dynamic  software  to  create  an  ‘intelligent’  search  engine,  which enables  users  to  type  in  a  specific  question  and  get  an exact answer.  Pingar’s new offices will be in Hong Kong’s prestigious Science &  Innovation Park, close  to one of  its key partners as well as a  range of potential customers  in China  and Asia.   Sharon-May McCrostie, New  Zealand’s Trade  Commissioner  to  Hong  Kong,  endorses  Pingar’s move  into  the  Chinese  market.    “Pingar  has  a revolutionary,  clever way  of  search  that will  transform  so many industry sectors, including publishing and monetizing online  content.    It  has  been  very  exciting  for  us  to see  a New  Zealand  company  taking  on  the  world  and  making real inroads…

ITWales ran an interview with an unnamed Pingar executive in its profile section. Key points from the interview are:

  • The Swansea office was achieved with “support from International Business Wales and other Welsh agencies. In February 2009 Pingar moved in to the Technium in Swansea in order to further develop established links between Swansea and Waikato Universities with the aim of doing some joint development work.”
  • “The beta version of Pingar, was integrated into Microsoft Office Marketplaces”
  • “…revolutionary technology for the monetization and management of DRM (Digital Rights Management) of valuable internet content, by providing dynamically created user reports with sponsor matching/targeting enabling free delivery of the information to users. The personalized dynamic publishing service is a service for Microsoft (IE) Internet and Enterprise products/users.”
  • “… Pingar provides automated content summarization, instead of links to articles and sites. Pingar has developed innovative technology for the delivery of responses to search queries. A Pingar report is as though you have a personal researcher preparing a unique publication drawn from valuable paid and unpaid content. The report is provided free of charge to the user based on dynamic sponsoring/advertising using bidding and profiling algorithms.”
  • “Microsoft now embed Pingar under the Pingar – ‘Smart Analytics’ brand as part of the Research Services button within Office 2003/7, Office Live and IE7 and to be released IE8 and SharePoint in Q3/Q4 2009.”
  • “Pingar is part of the Microsoft Startup Accelerator Program which provides leading-edge and early-stage technology companies with a range of support services and advice to help them succeed. We join ten other businesses identified by Microsoft for their high-growth potential and because they present opportunities where Microsoft’s support can make a real difference.”
  • “The Welsh branch of Pingar LP is Kaimai Limited, falling directly under Kaimai Holdings, wholly owned by the LP in New Zealand …. [The company is] … are looking at collaborating with Swansea University, and the Dragon Innovation Partnership (covering Swansea University, Swansea Metropolitan University and Trinity College), to source the correct staff for testing, IT development and support.”

The set up of the company is:

pingar org chart

I first heard about Pingar as an Internet search system. The company now has expanded its portfolio (maybe narrowed its focus to the SharePoint ecosystem?). The original approach was to allow the user to ask the Pingar system a question. The company worked with Hothouse, another New Zealand high-technology firm, which is affiliated with the incubator unit of the University of Waikato. The company supported an auction, ad-based option which uses a revenue sharing recipe to compensate content owners, Pingar, and its partners.

Another component of the firm’s business model was described in Scoop:

The key to the service being free is that Pingar then sells demographic profiles of users to advertisers. “They can put their logo or their advertising at the top of pages being searched by Pingar users and better target the demographic groups they are trying to reach,” says Mr Wren-Hilton.

The company received an initial injection of $77,000 from the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology in 2006.

In New Zealand, the company has used the expertise of the University of Waikato. Recently the company set up an R&D unit in Swansea, near Swansea University. The company has a sales and marketing office in London and an R&D unit in Bangalore.

In September 2009, Chris de Boer has been appointed as non-Executive chairman. de Boer remains a director of Macquarie Media Group, a director of Mobilis Limited, Chairman of Sonar6 and Chairman of AngelLink. In addition, he served as Chairman of the New Zealand Venture Investment Fund, Chairman of Phitek Systems, an adviser to the Cable and Wireless Group in Asia/Pacific between 1987 and 2001, director of Optus Communications, Chairman of the Hong Kong Takeovers Panel and an Investment Committee Member of GEMS Oriental & General Fund. My hunch is that Pingar will be on the fund raising trail.

The managing directory of the company is Peter Wren-Hilton, front right in the image adjacent this text.

pingar team

Source: http://wms-soros.mngt.waikato.ac.nz/NR/rethink/RethinkNov08.pdf

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under Business strategy, Feature, Search, SharePoint 

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