Comet partners with GoTo, Ask Jeeves

Comet Systems, which developed a technology that changes consumers' cursors into animated or still images as well as reference tools, says it has inked a distribution deal with online search service GoTo.com. Under the deal, GoTo's search listings will be syndicated to Comet's Cursor software. New York-based Comet said customers will have a Web search cursor that lets Net users click on any word, and results from GoTo will appear on a window. Comet added that it is syndicating content from Ask Jeeves in which the Comet Cursor will feature rankings of Web sites based on relative popularity for any given search term.

Ben Austin, vice president of marketing communications, said that the company is on a steady march toward profitability, and the deal will increase Comet's revenues by sending traffic to GoTo. In January, Comet inked a series of deals with Britannica.com, Houghton Mifflin, Rolling Stone and others that enables people to retrieve specific information such as dictionary definitions and encyclopedia listings. The Comet Cursor, which works with Microsoft's Internet Explorer versions 4.01 and higher, is customizable to use with other search engines.