OPENCOLA RELEASES OPENCOLA PRO 1.0 FOR INDIVIDUAL KNOWLEDGE WORKERS
Desktop Application Connects Users to the Knowledge and People That Are Relevant to Them

INTERNET LIBRARIAN CONFERENCE, BOOTH 307, PALM SPRINGS, CA - November 5, 2002 – Opencola Ltd, announced today the release of Opencola PRO 1.0™, the world's first personal knowledge manager that allows users to improve knowledge by automating the collection of relevant information from a diversity of sources including news sites, search engines, blogs and other peers' publicly shared documents.

Opencola's patent-pending semantic relevance engine dynamically alters search engine queries around a user's preferences, delivering the most personally relevant results available and proactively identifying relevant information and delivering it to the desktop. Users can also easily share knowledge and collaborate in real-time with secure text messaging and file transfer.

Individuals can play with a 30-day free trial version found at http://www.opencola.com before deciding to buy a US$99-a-year subscription.

"With Opencola PRO 1.0, knowledge workers can easily collect, share and collaborate on relevant internal and external information at their desktop via our distributed knowledge platform," said Ken Nickerson, CEO of Opencola. "Our goal is to help individuals become better informed in less time."

"IDC states that Fortune 500 companies will lose $31.5 billion by 2003 due to re-work and the inability to find information," said Joel Silver, Vice President of Marketing and Business Development for Opencola. "Opencola PRO 1.0 gives people access to a wealth of unstructured information distributed across non-centralized systems and sources."

Key Product Features

Simultaneous searching of multiple data sources, including peers. – Users can search thousands of content sources including news sources, search engines, blogs, and other people on the Opencola Knowledge Network, with a single query.

Use Existing Documents as Search Criteria – Users can add text-based documents (HTML, text files, Adobe® Acrobat™/ PDF, Microsoft® Outlook™, Microsoft Word™, Microsoft PowerPoint™, Microsoft Excel™) to a folder to start a search. Opencola will extract the key phrases from the documents and use them to find relevant information or peers.

Semantic Relevance Engine – Users "tag" items in their initial results list that are relevant to the search topic. The Semantic Relevance Engine then scores all other documents on a scale of 0-100 depending on how relevant they are to the documents have been "tagged". Next, it dynamically alters the initial search query based on the keywords extracted from the "tagged" documents to bring back even more relevant documents.

Secure Encrypted Messaging – Users can connect directly with other peers on the network with secure instant messaging. This is in contrast to public Instant Messaging clients where the entire chat passes through a central server. All network messages, file sharing, and chat are fully encrypted.

High Speed Secure File-Sharing – Users can browse the shared folders of a suggested peer and large files can be downloaded from other users' shared folders using Opencola's Swarmcast™, a patented technology that can download a file (if available) from multiple users concurrently, vastly improving speed and reliability.

Automatic updates – Folders in Opencola are defined as "active folders", which means that once results are saved as relevant, Opencola will continue to search for new results that are deemed relevant and replenish folders with new results automatically. Users select the intervals at which new results are delivered (daily, hourly, weekly, etc.)

Pricing
Opencola offers a free 30-day trial of Opencola PRO 1.0 which can be downloaded from the company's website. Registered trial users have the option to purchase Opencola PRO with a 1-year subscription to the Opencola Knowledge Network for $99 USD.

Operating System

• Microsoft® Windows® 98 Second Edition
• Microsoft Windows 2000
• Microsoft Windows Me
• Microsoft Windows XP

Hardware Requirements

• Intel® Pentium® processor, 233 MHz or higher
• 64 MB RAM (128 MB recommended)
• 50 MB available hard disk storage
• Display resolution 800 x 600, 15-bit (32,768) color minimum

Software Requirements

• Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 or later

Internet Connection

• LAN (local area network), DSL, or cable modem preferred

About Opencola
Opencola develops revolutionary technology that connects users to the knowledge and people that are relevant to them. Both individual users and enterprises can collect knowledge from thousands of sources including over 2,800 news feeds, the top 7 Internet search engines, web blogs, as well as other people on Opencola's Knowledge Network. Opencola's patent-pending semantic relevance engine dynamically alters search queries around a user's preferences, ensuring the most personally relevant results available. More information on the company can be found at www.opencola.com.

Opencola is a privately held company headquartered in Markham, Ontario.