SAN
FRANCISCO, September 9 2013 – Import•io launches into public beta today at
TechCrunch Disrupt with a new version of the data browser that turns the web into
a database.
Import•io
allows users to extract structured data from websites without writing any
computer code. Users simply navigate to a website and teach the browser
to extract data by showing it examples of where the data is, learning algorithms
then generalize from these examples to work out how to get all the data on the
website. The data that users collect is stored on import•io’s cloud servers to
be downloaded and shared. Users can also generate an API from the data
allowing them to easily integrate live web data into their own applications or
third party analytics and visualization software. The import•io data
browser is free to download from the website.
Import•io’s
mission is to structure the web and make web data available to everyone. Co-founder
and Chief Data Officer Andrew Fogg said,
“Web data is the biggest information opportunity for humanity since web
search. Google solved the problem of searching for documents on the web,
import•io is about accessing the data that is trapped inside those web
documents so that you can actually do something with it.
You can think of what we do as part of the big data revolution but big
data will only get exciting once we put the power to use it in the hands of
ordinary people. The last really exciting data technology was Microsoft
Excel, look at how that changed how all of us live and work.
We believe that data is power, and we want everyone to have an equal
share of that power. Along with companies like Tableau we are excited to
be making the power of data available to everyone.”
Import•io
launched into Developer Preview in November 2012 and won Best Startup at the
O’Reilly Strata conference in Santa Clara in February 2013. The launch
into Beta will occur at TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco. Import•io will also
be exhibiting at the GigaOm Structure Europe conference in September 2013 and
the Dublin Web Summit in October 2013. Andrew Fogg will next be speaking
on the “Data Gurus” panel at GigaOm Structure Europe.