According to the Wall Street Journal (subscription required), “Inform Technologies LLC, which is based in New York, said 16 online publications plan to include its new search function. Among them are WashingtonPost.Newsweek Interactive’s Newsweek.com and Conde Nast’s Portfolio.com.”

Inform began life a couple of years ago as a consumer destination site and news aggregator. Failing to gain traction (partly because it was too complex), it more recently reinvented itself as a publisher site search and platform provider.

The idea behind using Inform’s technology is to provide better on-site search and related news/content search from third-party sites. That potentially turns all the Inform-powered sites into news aggregators themselves. The aspiration is to provide a better user experience and more utility and boost page views, which in turn means more ad revenue for publishers.

Related Topics: Search Engines: News Search Engines | Site & Enterprise Search

About The Author: Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land. He writes a personal blog Screenwerk, about SoLoMo issues and connecting the dots between online and offline. He also posts at Internet2Go, which is focused on the mobile Internet. Follow him @gsterling. See more articles by Greg Sterling