Could a Wikipedia backed search engine take down Google?
Jimmy Wales, the man behind Wikipedia, has laid out plans to create a new search engine that focuses on quality results, rather than complete and total crawling. According to Reuters, "The new Wikia search service will combine computer-driven algorithms and human-assisted editing when the company launches a public version of the search site toward the end of 2007"
It's not likely that Wales efforts will make a short term dent in Google's stronghold but, never forget that Google's prowess came originally from it's ability to return better results. As scammers and Google bombers have continued to find ways to hit the top of searches they aren't entitled to, Google's competence has come into some doubt. If Wales and Wikia can build a better mouse trap, the world just might beat a path to their door.
I don't know if this is a labor of love or merely the brainchild of four very gifted games designers, but Level Up is a really weird mash-up of gaming elements that you have probably never seen in a Flash game before.
Let's start with the premise itself: Groundhog Day meets Memento. The game experience revolves around 'days': you explore the world and the clock slowly ticks towards the evening. You bounce around picking up gems and talking to the denizens of 'Level Upland'. Eventually you feel tired and head back to ...
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Digger said 10:01PM on 7-30-2007
Dugg:
http://digg.com/tech_news/Could_a_Wikipedia_backed_search_engine_take_down_Google
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Eric said 10:51PM on 7-30-2007
I hope they succeed. While Google is better than some (like Windows Live Search), I still have to go down a few results to get what I want.
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Chris said 1:08AM on 7-31-2007
Sounds alot like Mahalo (http://www.mahalo.com), which launched a few months ago
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h3x6y9 said 10:51PM on 8-01-2007
http://www.ps3wallpaper.cn
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kartooner said 3:23PM on 7-31-2007
Well, an alternative is always nice. However, I just don't see this stealing the limelight from Google.
Maybe an alliance perhaps? Whenever I'm searching for something on Google about 70% of the time there's a link to Wikipedia covering whatever topic I'm researching, so I could foresee that happening.
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James said 5:09PM on 7-31-2007
If I want factual information, such as details about a person, place, organization, video game, etc., I go straight to WP in many cases. (I have a link in Firefox to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%s set up with the keyword "W", so I just have to type "w Tribbles" to go to the WP entry on Tribbles.) If I want a wider variety of information, or to know how to do something, or to get several opinions on something, I go to Google. The problem I see with getting a WP-ish search engine is having enough people to cover obscure topics without those obscure search results getting hijacked by spammers. In well-trafficked results, the "hive mind" should be able to police commercial manipulation, but if there's not a critical mass of people "editing" some search results, it will fall under the radar. At the very least, I'll be interested to see how they try to tackle this one.
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Mandeepm said 9:38AM on 8-31-2007
Wikia Search is not associated with Wikipedia in any way. Wikipedia is run by Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization. Wikia Search is a a commercial initiative by Wikia, a for-profit company.
So, it's wrong to call it a "Wikipedia-backed search engine".
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Claudiu Spulber said 5:07AM on 8-01-2007
"At the SMX Conference in June 2007, Google software engineer Matt Cutts explained that while he supports different approaches to search, like Mahalo, it is untrue that humans have nothing to do with Google's search results. As examples of human involvement he cited Google's use of hyperlink analysis, toolbar voting, and user reporting of spam. Cutts suggested that Google would evolve to take advantage of social media. - wikipedia"
This approach from Google seems better than the "human-edited" part of wiki search, that would only slow down the development of the search engine rather than helping.
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