Cogitum announces pre-release of new language for creating descriptions of Internet banner products

Press Release

Reston, VA, January 24, 2001

Cogitum LC, a leading developer of software for personal Internet information capture (PIIC), announced today the pre-release of BannerML, a new language for creating user-friendly descriptions of products advertised in Internet banners.

BannerML would allow advertisers to attach additional text information to banners. It is targeted to the end-user, and it describes recommended fields (tags) of information about the advertised product. Text marked using BannerML would be delivered directly to the user’s computer without any serious changes in current banner delivery technology.

BannerML is based on the XML format, so it is similar to many industries’ mark-up languages. However, it is not intended for marking up banners, per se, but rather for marking up new text information associated with a banner. BannerML would provide significant benefits to advertisers and users alike. It increases business opportunities for all companies in the Internet advertisement business, yet it is technically extremely easy to support and handle, and it is ready for wide-scale use after just minor adaptations of existing software. Support of this language does not require any changes at the ad delivering sites, but full utilization of BannerML opportunities will require some software components on the end-user’s side.

Cogitum is developing BannerML in response to the challenges that face the Internet advertising market—banner ads have a short life span, are generally intrusive (i.e., to click on an ad means the user must abandon whatever he was doing previously), and they provide extremely limited information. The quickly dropping click-though rate experienced by banner advertisers is only a symptom of these limitations.

Cogitum announces 10,000 downloads of Image Co-Tracker and new Gift.Me" campaign

Press Release

Reston, VA, December 18, 2000

Cogitum LC announced today that its popular free visual database, Image Co-Tracker, has been downloaded over 10,000 times in just 4 months since the product was launched.

This milestone occurred roughly at the same time that Cogitum announced its new "Gift.Me" campaign, which allows users to send a friend information about Image Co-Tracker. Sending this information is easy-users simply click on a gift box image and fill out a form with the e-mail address of a friend. Cogitum will then send an e-mail message to the friend with instructions for downloading Image Co-Tracker.

Cogitum launches free Co-Citer content organizer software

Press Release

Reston, VA, December 7, 2000

Cogitum LC, headquartered in Reston, VA, today launches Co-Citer, the first product in the new niche of Internet content organizers.

Co-Citer is a software tool for creating and managing personal databases of text fragments (citations), taken from Internet pages, and for effective clipping of such fragments. With Co-Citer user can create databases of any size text fragments with thousands of entries and manage all this information in an effective and easy way. An important advantage of Co-Citer is one-click access to the original document from which the text fragment was taken.

This product provides so many new features that Cogitum has coined a new term for this type of tool—content organizer. A content organizer, like all organizers, is an easy-to-use personal tool for implementing functions that previously needed more sophisticated and expensive tools.

Co-Citer operates with the content of Internet pages, because it works with separate pieces of documents, chosen by the user, rather then the whole page or document. Co-Citer manages such content by supporting effective searching, sorting, and moving, as well as sending and posting content fragments, saving and keeping all Internet links to the original document.

Alla Polegenkaya, CEO of Cogitum, said, “Co-Citer will definitely become widely used by all professional groups that work regularly with Internet-based information, including students, analysts, scientists, attorneys, and reporters. At the same time, Co-Citer is very useful for non-professional users. Co-Citer makes it easy to store interesting information in an effective way: users keep only the desired text fragments and associated information, including links and personal comments. These features are what makes Co-Citer live up to the Cogitum slogan: ‘Making the Internet your personal database.’"

Leonid Malkov, Cogitum LC President, said, “Co-Citer is a terrific tool for all Internet surfers, who now won't have to rely only on their memory, or copy thousands of documents with little chance of finding interesting fragments. At the same time, this product is very important for many businesses. It provides new marketing opportunities for companies selling text information, like articles, news, research reports, quotes, and other documents. Companies can ‘broadcast’ samples of their text products to the content organizer, where users can purchase the product with just one click of the mouse. We expect that many customers of text information would soon prefer to obtain information in the Co-Citer format, which is delivery independent and search-ready.”

Co-Citer brings knowledge management methods to the level of ordinary users, with an ability to manage thousands of arbitrary size fragments from the Internet in an effective and easy way.

Co-Citer is the second product in Cogitum’s line. The first product, Image Co-Tracker, is a free database tool for managing Internet images, including banner ads and product images for e-shopping. Co-Tracker was an immediate success, with over 9,000 downloads in just a few months, and it received many high rating in reviews, including Ziff -Davis Net.

Co-Citer is a natural companion to Image Co-Tracker; think of it as a “content co-tracker” that provides similar clipping and managing tools for the text content of Internet pages.

Cogitum offers new version of popular free software for capturing and managing Internet images

Press Release

Reston, VA, November 1, 2000

Cogitum LC announces today the launch of the second version of its popular Image Co-Tracker, a free database program for capturing and managing Internet images.

The first version of Image Co-Tracker, launched August 17, 2000, was a tremendous hit: nearly 3000 downloads in 10 weeks. Several leading downloading sites, including Ziff-Davis, gave the product their highest ratings.

Co-Tracker has the unique capability to "grab" images from the Internet, along with all associated hyperlinks, and store it in a personal database that allows the user to sort, search, and categorize the grabbed images. Co-Tracker works with the Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher browser to allow users to create their own libraries of images, from digital art to business charts and banner ads.

Co-Tracker provides a solution to "information overload." Grabbing an image takes only a few seconds, allowing Internet users to continue their original work practically unimpeded while filing the image and associated hypertext links for future use.

Dr. Alla Polegenkaya, Cogitum CEO, says, "Image Co-Tracker can catalog any Internet images the user desires. However, it is especially useful for two certain types of images because of their temporary nature. The ability to clip and save banner advertisements makes them more user-friendly. Not only are users not distracted from their original work, but they can capture rotating or temporary ads that may otherwise be unobtainable in the future. Image Co-Tracker is also a critical tool for Internet shopping, because the user can build shopping lists with images of products for further consideration."

Dr. Leonid Malkov, President of Cogitum LC, says, "Co-Tracker constitutes a new class of Internet applications-a product for managing Internet images. Such a product will be useful for practically every Internet surfer, from student to sophisticated analyst. And standardization in this area could benefit both users and advertisers. Cogitum is looking to make Co-Tracker the de-facto standard in the class of Internet image managers, and we are fully committed to permanent improvements of this product."

The new version of Image Co-Tracker has an improved interface and many new functions. Version 2 supports multiple user-created databases, with separate categories in each, making it possible to create virtually unlimited image collections in a simple and manageable way. Other notable changes in the second version of the software include the opportunity to share collected information with other users and the ability to create HTML files for posting on the Internet.

Cogitum is a fast-growing software start-up company headquartered in Reston, VA. The company focuses on the development of software products for Internet users, utilizing a knowledge management approach. Co-Tracker is the first product in their line.

Additional information about Co-Tracker can be obtained by contacting President Leonid Malkov, calling 703-478-3050 or by sending e-mail to info@cogitum.com. The program can be downloaded free for non-commercial use from Cogitum's Web site, http://www.cogitum.com.

NOTE: Cogitum and Co-Tracker are trademarks of Cogitum LC.

Cogitum offers free software for capturing and managing Internet images

Press Release

Reston, VA, August 17, 2000

Cogitum LC announces the launch of Image Co-Tracker, a free database program for capturing and managing Internet images. Co-Tracker has the unique capability to “grab” any image from the Internet and store it in a personal database that allows the user to sort, search, and categorize the grabbed images. Co-Tracker works with the Internet Explorer 5.0 browser to allow users to create their own libraries of images, from digital art to business charts and banner ads.

Co-Tracker provides a solution to “information overload.” Grabbing an image takes only a few seconds, allowing Internet users to continue their original work practically unimpeded while filing the image and associated hypertext links for future use. Dr. Alla Polegenkaya, Cogitum CEO, says, “Finding previously viewed images on the Internet is difficult, because most search engines can only index the text surrounding the image. If users cannot remember the text, they may not be able to find the image. Co-Tracker allows users to store any potentially interesting image, along with a user-assigned image name and comments, in a personal database on their own computer.”

Online shopping is an attractive application of Co-Tracker. The user can build a database of competing products, then sort and view them in a variety of ways to compare and select the desired product. Co-Tracker stores the product images along with all links and commentaries, which also facilitates the eventual purchase.

Although Co-Tracker was designed with Internet users in mind, it is equally beneficial to Internet advertisers. Users are much more likely to investigate the ads if they can do so at their leisure. Co-Tracker also ensures that the ad is available when the user wishes to view it, unlike many Web sites that rotate banner ads. What’s more, if an image has multiple hypertext links associated with it, Co-Tracker can capture all of these links, making all of an advertiser’s information available to the user. Co-Tracker can also store dynamic (animated) images.

Dr. Leonid Malkov, President of Cogitum LC, says, “Co-Tracker is a revolutionary product that could totally reshape Internet advertising. Banner ads have a very short life cycle-often measured in seconds-and it is often difficult, if not impossible, to find a previously viewed banner ad. Co-Tracker makes banner ads a more ‘permanent’ medium, and we believe that major advertisers will appreciate this opportunity.”

Cogitum is a fast-growing software start-up company headquartered in Reston, VA. The company focuses on the development of software products for Internet users, utilizing a knowledge management approach. Co-Tracker is the first product in their line.