Using Photos to Search the Web

It's easy to tell what inspires Jan Erik Solem. "I had a couple of years where I was really obsessed with polar explorers — there are so many great stories," says the founder of Polar Rose. He's no longer plowing through books on legendary adventurers, but he's still full of admiration for guys like Robert Scott, Ernest Shackleton, and his fellow Norwegians Roald Amundsen and Fridtjof Nansen because, as Solem notes, "they were also inventors and entrepreneurs."

Solem, 31, whose company makes software that allows Web users to click on a photo to search for other photos,...