Aeneid has already established its industry content and search solution with EoCenter (http://www.eocenter.com) across four industries and 19 affiliate sites, and the service will soon be bolstered by a new monitor and notification offering called EoMonitor (http://www.eocenter.com/eomonitor.html) based on the technology developed by InGenius. EoMonitor will include information on exactly what has changed on a monitored Web page. Integration of InGenius Technologies properties into the EoMonitor area of EoCenter will occur in a phased approach that began in October, with completion targeted for first-quarter 2000.

Aeneid chief technology officer Bob Ainsbury feels that change monitoring on the Internet will become as pervasive as e-mail is now. "A year from now, monitoring technology will become a staple feature of search engines and portals," he said. "Aeneid's acquisition of InGenius Technologies positions the company well as a front-runner in this shift. Our multifaceted approach to delivering search, monitor, and notification services together is what all vertical portals should be implementing in the future, or their visitors will go elsewhere to find it."

"Our focus at InGenius Technologies over the past 3 years has been on creating tools that provide efficient access to useful information on the Internet, as well as building a strong customer base," said Julie Stock, president and CEO of InGenius Technologies. "We're very excited to join Aeneid and to continue serving business professionals' information needs in a wide variety of ways." Stock noted that while InGenius' applications and services have done quite well in the consumer space, the company feels they are more profitably applied to business applications because of the time and money savings they can offer.

According to a company representative, Aeneid will maintain InGenius Technologies' subscription services (javElink, Daily Diffs, etc.) and honor all current agreements. Aeneid will continue offering the free non-subscription services (Daily Diffs and EgoSurf) under a new brand. All data will be maintained and personal information will not be jeopardized.

Datasearch president Sue Feldman, who monitors developments with the search engines closely, said: "Change monitoring is an important new technology that enables us to handle large amounts of information easily. It only tells us what has changed, so that we don't have to wade through the same information repeatedly. I've been tracking and using the InGenius Technologies products for over a year—eons in Internet time—and am always impressed by their ability to find what I want. It is particularly useful for finding changes in competitors' Web sites, as well as for alerting the subscriber to new articles about a subject of continuing interest. Their graphical layout for Daily Diffs is clever and easy to use. It capitalizes on our ability to understand large amounts of information quickly if it is not in pure text format."

InGenius Technologies has just three full-time employees: Julie Stock (president, CEO, and co-founder), Gary Stock (vice president, CIO, and co-founder), and Jamie McCarthy (lead programmer). This is the third company that the entrepreneurial Julie Stock has established. She indicated that her background in business, finance, and marketing was complemented nicely by her husband Gary's technical expertise and customer-relations background. The three will be joining the Aeneid team, but titles have not yet been determined. For now, the InGenius team will stay in Michigan, adding a solid Midwest contact point for Aeneid customers, in addition to the West Coast headquarters and a recently opened New York office serving the East Coast.

Established in 1996, San Francisco-based Aeneid has grown quickly in its few years of existence, and now employs 60 people. It is currently in its "D round" to raise additional funding, expected to be $25 to $30 million. Ainsbury referred to Doug Bennett, the recently appointed president and CEO, as a "very important arrow in our quiver," and someone who could take the company public when the time is right.

Bennett joined Aeneid with more than 20 years of experience in software, Internet, and reference publishing, including the last 7 years in senior management positions at Macmillan and Simon & Schuster. Daniel Putterman, Aeneid's 32-year-old co-founder, previous CEO, and president (who attended college at age 12!), is now chairman of the board. Aeneid also recently announced an important agreement with CMP Media to deploy EoCenters on TechWeb.

For more information on Aeneid and InGenius, see http://www.aeneid.com and http://www.ingetech.com.