Ziff-Davis is one of the world's largest technology media companies, while CNET publishes a variety of Web sites and electronic newsletters covering technology. The products have received awards from these sites. The searches are lightning-fast and keyword highlighting makes browsing results a breeze. Appelbaum said this recognition is an honor, because tens of thousands of people visit the site everyday, which most likely resulted in several thousand downloads of Webspector. So far, Garvett and Appelbaum estimate that roughly 200,000 different visitors have been to the company Web site, based on their Web site logs.
Users download the core features of the software for free while advertising is displayed.
The advertising comes from an electronic ad agency, Conducent, Inc., with which Illumix Software contracts. Appelbaum said that as a strategy to increase circulation of their products in the market, initial versions of the different software were completely unlimited and free. Now that the products have gained market share and awards, Appelbaum said Illumix Software is charging for more advanced versions of its products. According to Appelbaum, he first proposed the idea of starting a software company to Garvett in the summer of 1998. They soon began to develop Internet-based software products.