NTT Software Laboratory, located in Musashino in the eastern suburb of Tokyo was installing on the Internet a knowledge search engine depending on the geographical position of the user. This tool could be reached at the URL http://www.kokono.net and was aimed at providing a guide of institutions, hotels, restaurants or stores located near the user, using information available on Internet. Therefore, as a first step, the software has to localize the user, using information from the telecommunication company, and, as a second step, pertinent information has to be retrieved from the Internet.
The method chosen for the second step was to organize geographically the information on Internet, either using databases like yellow pages in which geographic informations are easy to extract, or by extracting such information directly from documents available on the Internet (e.g. ZIP codes or addresses).
This information extraction was therefore limited to geographic information, in order to organize a very large database according to an original criterion. The Internet site kokono.net was experimental in July 1998, but was about to become commercial.