open-source-search-engine/html/bio.html

<title>Gigablast's Matt Wells' Career Highlights</title>


<br><br><br><br>

<table width=100% cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" border="0">
<tr bgcolor="#0340fd">
<th colspan="2">
<font color=33dcff>
Matt Wells' Career Highlights</font> 
</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<br>



<center>
<table width=650px cellpadding=10>

<tr><td>
<a href="https://archive.org/stream/rainbowmagazine-1989-05/The_Rainbow_Magazine_05_1989#page/n117/mode/2up"><img width=128 height=94 src=/germs.png></a>
</td>
<td>1988. Wrote graphic adventure game called 'Revenge of the Germs' for the Tandy Color Computer while a junior in High School. Sold it and <a href="https://archive.org/stream/rainbowmagazine-1989-05/The_Rainbow_Magazine_05_1989#page/n117/mode/2up">got reviewed</a> in the Rainbow Magazine in May of 1989 by Gail Allore. I found the full <a href=/GERMS.DSK>160k disk image</a> on sites like <a href="http://archive.worldofdragon.org/archive/index.php?dir=Disks/CoCo/CoCo_Disk_Games/">this</a> still floating around.
</td>
</tr>


<tr><td>
<a href=http://web.archive.org/web/19970407013333/http://cs.nmt.edu/>
<img src=/nmtcs.jpg align=left>
</a>
</td><td>1996. Won the homepage design contest for the Computer Science Department at <a href=http://www.nmt.edu/>New Mexico Tech</a> with <a href=http://web.archive.org/web/19970407013333/http://cs.nmt.edu/>this site</a>. I created an <a href=/zia.mpg>animated zia</a> for it using BMRT. I did all the drawings myself using Photoshop.
</td></tr>

<tr>
<td>
<img width=128 height=128 src=abqnewsthumb.jpg align=left>
</td>
<td>
1997. Created the <b>Artists' Den</b>. Was in the 
Albuquerque Journal (page <a href=/abqnews1.jpg>1</a> and <a href=/abqnews2.jpg>2</a>) in March 1997. Was featured in Yahoo's and Netscape's <i>What's Cool</i> and was a semi-permanent feature on Infoseek's reference page. Was one of the leading art sites in the world at the time. (<a href="http://www.cyrius.com.au/_blog/TEST_-_BCH_Blog_Automation_Test/post/Art/">review 1</a>, <a href="http://members.fortunecity.com/touchon/acad-002.htm">review 2</a> , 
<a href="http://business.highbeam.com/2872/article-1G1-107605314/openart-forum">review 3</a>)
</td></tr>


<tr>
<td>
<img width=128 height=40 src=/nmt.png align=left>
</td>
<td>
1997. Received a B.S. in Computer Science and M.S. Mathematics from New Mexico Tech in Socorro, New Mexico.
</td></tr>


<tr><td>
<a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infoseek>
<img src=/infoseek.jpg>
</a>
</td><td>
1997. Worked at <a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infoseek>Infoseek</a> for a few years on the core search team with about 7 other engineers, including <a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Li>Robin Li</a>, the founder of <a href=http://www.baidu.com/>Baidu</a>, the largest search engine in China. I found it amazing how much Infoseek relied on search to feed its website, but yet the core team was so small.
</td></tr>


<tr><td>
<a href=http://www.gigablast.com/><img src=/gbrocket.png width=128 height=129></a>
</td><td>
2000. Founded <a href=http://www.gigablast.com/>Gigablast</a>. Bootstrapped with $30k. Developed almost all the code myself. Circa 2006 Gigablast had over 12 billion pages indexed and was the second largest search engine in the world. At one time Gigablast also ranked in the top 2000 most popular websites worldwide. To this date, Gigablast continues to serve millions of queries per day using almost all wind power.
</td></tr>


<tr><td>
<a href=http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2067980/A-Conversation-With-Gigablasts-Matt-Wells><img width=128 height=46 src=/sew.png></a>
</td><td>2003. Interviewed by Gary Price of  
<a href=http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2067980/A-Conversation-With-Gigablasts-Matt-Wells>Search Engine Watch</a>. In addition to some <a href=http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2063106/Gigablast-Now-Offering-XML-Search-Feeds>followups</a>.

</tr></tr>


<tr><td>
<br>
<a href=/acmqueue.pdf><img src=/acm.png width=128 height=122></a>
</td><td>
2004. <a href=/acmqueue.pdf>Interview</a> with <a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Kirsch>Steve Kirsch</a> for the <a href=http://queue.acm.org/>ACM Queue</a>, the official magazine of Association for Computing Machinery.
</td></tr>

<tr><td>
<a href=/dator.pdf><img src=/dator.png width=128 height=121></a>
</td><td>
2004. <a href=/dator.pdf>Interviewed</a> by <a href=http://www.datormagazin.se/>Dator</a>, a Swedish Computer Magazine.
</td></tr>

<tr>
<td>
<img width=128 height=33 src=/slashdot.png>
</td>
<td>
2004. <a href=http://developers.slashdot.org/story/04/04/17/1942228/how-to-build-a-search-engine>Slashdot covers Gigablast</a>.
</td></tr>



<tr><td>
<a href=/business2.0.pdf><img src=/biz.png width=128 height=157></a>
</td><td>
2005. <a href=/business2.0.pdf>Interview in Business 2.0</a>.
</td></tr>


<tr><td>
<img width=128 height=64 src=/techcrunch.png>
</td>
<td>
2005. Coverage by Techcrunch for <a href=http://techcrunch.com/2005/07/09/profile-gigablast-blog-search/>Gigablast Blog Search</a> by Michael Arrington and <a href=http://www.crunchbase.com/company/gigablast>in Crunchbase<a>.
</td>
</tr>



<tr><td>
<a href=/ff2006.doc><img src=/ff.jpg width=128 height=80></a>
</td><td>
2006. In the <a href=/ff2006.doc>New Mexico Flying Forty</a>. One of New Mexico's top 40 technology companies by revenue. (A more <a href="http://adminpress.jllpress.com/Kirtland_AFB/documents/Pres2-ABQEconomicProfile.pdf">official PDF</a>).
</td></tr>

<tr><td>
<a href=http://www.nmt.edu/nmt-news/16-2007/2960-blasting-into-the-big-leagues-matt-wells-and-gigablast><img src=/bb.png width=128 height=130></a>
</td><td>
2007. Interviewed by my Alma Mater, <a href=http://www.nmt.edu/nmt-news/16-2007/2960-blasting-into-the-big-leagues-matt-wells-and-gigablast>New Mexico Tech's Newsletter</a>.
</td></tr>


<tr><td>
<a href=http://www.brandchannel.com/home/post/2011/10/03/Brandcameo-Dolphin-Tale-100311.aspx><img src=/dolphintale.png width=128 height=69></a>
</td><td>
2011. Gigablast used as the search engine in Warner Brothers <a href="http://www.brandchannel.com/home/post/2011/10/03/Brandcameo-Dolphin-Tale-100311.aspx">Dolphin Tale</a>. As well as the remake of Nightmare on Elm Street and others.
</td></tr>




<tr><td>
<a href=http://www.eventguru.com/><img src=/eventguru.png width=128 height=95></a>
</td><td>
2012. After years of work, launched <a href=http://www.eventguru.com/>Event Guru</a>, the largest search engine for events in the U.S. And it is the only technology to spider the entire web for events. It can read a page like you or me and figure out the events with a decent accuracy. This is a surprisingly hard problem because when you read events from a page, you engage a lot more mental processes than you realize!
</td></tr>


<tr><td>
<img src=/chand2.jpg width=128 height=171>
</td><td>
Donated <a href=http://www.jezebelgallery.com/>chandelier from Jezebel Lighting</a> to the Albuquerque Sunport. Creation is almost completed.
</td></tr>


<tr><td>
<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=qLzoWKp2JHcC&pg=PA141&lpg=PA141&dq=gigablast&source=bl&ots=JfwmfpIPKW&sig=sXUFaCsUlxhVfrd2cc4kBKif5LY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=cbn6UfvJB-6GyQGYwICwAg&ved=0CCoQ6AEwADhQ#v=onepage&q=gigablast&f=false">
<img src=/nsa.jpg width=128 height=128>
</a>
</td><td>
2013. The <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=qLzoWKp2JHcC&pg=PA141&lpg=PA141&dq=gigablast&source=bl&ots=JfwmfpIPKW&sig=sXUFaCsUlxhVfrd2cc4kBKif5LY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=cbn6UfvJB-6GyQGYwICwAg&ved=0CCoQ6AEwADhQ#v=onepage&q=gigablast&f=false">NSA reviewed Gigablast</a> in its book, "Untangling the Web" which was declassified under the Freedom of Information Act.
</td></tr>


<tr><td>
<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6152839"><img src=/hackernews.png width=128 height=41></a>
</td><td>
2013. Released Gigablast as open source as reported by <a href=https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6152839>Hacker News</a> among others. The latest version has many improvements over that one. Currently on <a href=https://github.com/gigablast/open-source-search-engine>GitHub</a> with over 375 stars and gaining ground on SOLR (based on Java/Lucene) with 435 stars as of Jan 15, 2015.
</td>
</tr>


<tr><td>
<a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=gigablast&btnG=Search+Books&tbm=bks&tbo=1&gws_rd=ssl#tbm=bks&q=%22gigablast%22>"><img src=/googlebooks.png width=128 height=48></a>
</td><td>
2015. Gigablast now mentioned in several hundred books in <a href=https://www.google.com/search?q=gigablast&btnG=Search+Books&tbm=bks&tbo=1&gws_rd=ssl#tbm=bks&q=%22gigablast%22>Google Book Search</a>.
</td>
</tr>

<tr><td>
<a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=gigablast"><img src=/googlescholar.png width=128 height=55></a>
</td><td>
2015. Gigablast now mentioned in several hundred schorlarly papers on <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=gigablast">Google Scholar</a>.
</td>
</tr>




</table>
</center>



<br>
</td></tr>
</table>