Social Search 2.1 : Eurekster, Vast, Wink, Omnidrive
"Eurekster has two existing and six pending patents covering everything from how a search engine can learn from user behavior to how it can utilize collaboration among users to drive search results. "If our technology were in the hands of one of [the search engines or a huge media company], it would be a competitive advantage," says Eurekster CEO Steven Marder. He would only allow that the outfit is negotiating potential partnerships with a number of portals and media companies." BusinessWeek
I dealt with the New Zealand origin'd Eurekster Team a couple years ago when they had built some pre-Friendster social networking technology : which we deployed in a business connections play I was involved in downunder; But I think "social search" as a business segment, is a bit over done : More as a definition, than an opportunity.
I like that my friends, family and those who grok the same things as me, can theoretically rate/rank/their choices/recommendations/searches for me (when I need them/next do a "social search" - footnote : does anyone do a social search ? do we actually change our technorati/google behaviour and do a "social search" ? 'oops, craigslist isnt working i better do a social search on wink/eurekster etc... thats the problem)
My main worry is this is not necessarily a "search problem" which social search is trying to solve - It seems more a Communication/IM/VOIP/Wireless + Classification/Folksonomy one. (remember 100 people in a room will make 100 totally different Long Tail Searches)
Social sites that have worked for example - delicious, digg etc have not been focused on search. Social search sites that have - wink, eurekster and esp Yahoo's own social search site "MyWeb 2.0" is it called ? have had a hard non winning path - with non killer uptake. In reality the next VOIP, and open instant messenger application or video "searching", sharing and uploading community has had far more success 2004-6.
"Yeah that's all nice benjamin", but as interview theory tells us, identifying a problem is of no value, unless you have a solution, so Ben's Best of Social Search 2.1, would do the following :
- A Filtered Personalised Page Rank for each user across web and blog search : I dont want a slider, I just want my own PageRank, so google doesnt come back with this search engine optimised rubbish from sites I dont care about.
- This pagerank like score could be done by understanding users "attention data" in addition to tailrank/rollyo like uploading of the users' opml
- A Killer Recency meets Social Networking Play where anytime someone who may be of some interest to me (that I've explicitly noted or the system determines implicitly) their "latest posts" by time, topic, tag, keyword, region, inbound links etc, floats across my screen re Google Web Clips on some Whitney Houston Crunk.
- Deep Web Classified crawling ala Vast.com that taps into my Personalised Home Page. Like what indeed.com and simplyhired.com do with RSS, but for all classifieds and my own hunting purposes (eg business and customer networking on myspace and linkedin) Then let me hypertune my "money spending activities" subscriptions, into watchlists within my RSS that say "Porsche Cayman S, demo, going dirt cheap in Texas/Perth : Get onto IT"
- Let me access my content/searches/subscriptions anywhere through cross platform, browser and O/S entry ala Newsgator/Feeddemon/NetNewsWire
- Default my searches, subscriptions, files to a public folder, let me save/backup/access stuff ala Omnidrive.com : But let me store my private stuff, esp business related ! Then I really can access everything everywhere. Like Jim Clarke's CFO play that failed, but I'm thinking more than providing a web utility here, it's like an outgrowth of customer support when you buy a PC meets Business Banking VIP Customer Service. You Optimise it for me.
- Geo-Local filters on all the content/my subscriptions, because not everyone wants George Bush as their default home page. Seriously, geo-code all content at the author level (who wrote/created it and where) and at the consumption level (users can tag, geocode it, as to where they consumed, ratings, rank etc, which is then aggregated with other geo-content)
- Non blog/media content folksonomy and communities : In Video, podcasts, classifieds and so on : There will be some real vertical value in players in these areas being absorbed into the greater 2.0'sphere. eg I like Keith and the Girl Podcast or Venture Voice, what else should I listen to ?
Moving On : OK, given Vista wont ship by XMAS, and now the Video Ipod Fullscreen will release at that (delayed) time - I'm hoping someone will have this Social Search 2.1 Play ready by then. More likely, each part of the equation the major players will continue building and users will as Fred Wilson says pull together best of breed vertical options.
Example : This weekend, I've been working on (regionally downunder) what is the line between too much noise (eg by displaying too many US blog search results) and not enough signal (relevant Aussie blog posts) : Wih recency always being a big tradeoff factor in all 2006 search ventures. Should I focus on the last hour / day.. or the "best" result ?
Since Technorati recently implemented MySpace in their listings (which I think is good) and tied into that they want to be comprehensive, it means a user will get say 20 search results for a keyword (I searched for "sydney") from the last 2 hours. The outcome : Lots of great posts about Sydney the person, and Sydney the location, in the last 2 hours, but not necessarily the best posts about Sydney from the last 4 days as they were all focused on last 3 hours.
The problem is the best search could be more than 3 hours old; The user shouldnt have to use a authority "slider" (dodgey name !) to find this result (or not, how does the user know there is a good result there : They dont and majority wont use it !) In search - you only get once chance at most users, and they type a word in and press enter, thats it. Thats why search rox.
OK, I better go back to work, in the interim, I'll be thinking more about social search as I get this gnoos thing ready to launch (its a good sign when u r using your product each night till 2am as a user, not because it sux !) But my overall Homer Simpson meets Kerouauc thoughts on "Social Search" (with K-Fed and Britney pumping the chorus) and I hope Eurekster get bought by Microsoft is...
I dealt with the New Zealand origin'd Eurekster Team a couple years ago when they had built some pre-Friendster social networking technology : which we deployed in a business connections play I was involved in downunder; But I think "social search" as a business segment, is a bit over done : More as a definition, than an opportunity.
I like that my friends, family and those who grok the same things as me, can theoretically rate/rank/their choices/recommendations/searches for me (when I need them/next do a "social search" - footnote : does anyone do a social search ? do we actually change our technorati/google behaviour and do a "social search" ? 'oops, craigslist isnt working i better do a social search on wink/eurekster etc... thats the problem)
My main worry is this is not necessarily a "search problem" which social search is trying to solve - It seems more a Communication/IM/VOIP/Wireless + Classification/Folksonomy one. (remember 100 people in a room will make 100 totally different Long Tail Searches)
Social sites that have worked for example - delicious, digg etc have not been focused on search. Social search sites that have - wink, eurekster and esp Yahoo's own social search site "MyWeb 2.0" is it called ? have had a hard non winning path - with non killer uptake. In reality the next VOIP, and open instant messenger application or video "searching", sharing and uploading community has had far more success 2004-6.
"Yeah that's all nice benjamin", but as interview theory tells us, identifying a problem is of no value, unless you have a solution, so Ben's Best of Social Search 2.1, would do the following :
- A Filtered Personalised Page Rank for each user across web and blog search : I dont want a slider, I just want my own PageRank, so google doesnt come back with this search engine optimised rubbish from sites I dont care about.
- This pagerank like score could be done by understanding users "attention data" in addition to tailrank/rollyo like uploading of the users' opml
- A Killer Recency meets Social Networking Play where anytime someone who may be of some interest to me (that I've explicitly noted or the system determines implicitly) their "latest posts" by time, topic, tag, keyword, region, inbound links etc, floats across my screen re Google Web Clips on some Whitney Houston Crunk.
- Deep Web Classified crawling ala Vast.com that taps into my Personalised Home Page. Like what indeed.com and simplyhired.com do with RSS, but for all classifieds and my own hunting purposes (eg business and customer networking on myspace and linkedin) Then let me hypertune my "money spending activities" subscriptions, into watchlists within my RSS that say "Porsche Cayman S, demo, going dirt cheap in Texas/Perth : Get onto IT"
- Let me access my content/searches/subscriptions anywhere through cross platform, browser and O/S entry ala Newsgator/Feeddemon/NetNewsWire
- Default my searches, subscriptions, files to a public folder, let me save/backup/access stuff ala Omnidrive.com : But let me store my private stuff, esp business related ! Then I really can access everything everywhere. Like Jim Clarke's CFO play that failed, but I'm thinking more than providing a web utility here, it's like an outgrowth of customer support when you buy a PC meets Business Banking VIP Customer Service. You Optimise it for me.
- Geo-Local filters on all the content/my subscriptions, because not everyone wants George Bush as their default home page. Seriously, geo-code all content at the author level (who wrote/created it and where) and at the consumption level (users can tag, geocode it, as to where they consumed, ratings, rank etc, which is then aggregated with other geo-content)
- Non blog/media content folksonomy and communities : In Video, podcasts, classifieds and so on : There will be some real vertical value in players in these areas being absorbed into the greater 2.0'sphere. eg I like Keith and the Girl Podcast or Venture Voice, what else should I listen to ?
Moving On : OK, given Vista wont ship by XMAS, and now the Video Ipod Fullscreen will release at that (delayed) time - I'm hoping someone will have this Social Search 2.1 Play ready by then. More likely, each part of the equation the major players will continue building and users will as Fred Wilson says pull together best of breed vertical options.
Example : This weekend, I've been working on (regionally downunder) what is the line between too much noise (eg by displaying too many US blog search results) and not enough signal (relevant Aussie blog posts) : Wih recency always being a big tradeoff factor in all 2006 search ventures. Should I focus on the last hour / day.. or the "best" result ?
Since Technorati recently implemented MySpace in their listings (which I think is good) and tied into that they want to be comprehensive, it means a user will get say 20 search results for a keyword (I searched for "sydney") from the last 2 hours. The outcome : Lots of great posts about Sydney the person, and Sydney the location, in the last 2 hours, but not necessarily the best posts about Sydney from the last 4 days as they were all focused on last 3 hours.
The problem is the best search could be more than 3 hours old; The user shouldnt have to use a authority "slider" (dodgey name !) to find this result (or not, how does the user know there is a good result there : They dont and majority wont use it !) In search - you only get once chance at most users, and they type a word in and press enter, thats it. Thats why search rox.
OK, I better go back to work, in the interim, I'll be thinking more about social search as I get this gnoos thing ready to launch (its a good sign when u r using your product each night till 2am as a user, not because it sux !) But my overall Homer Simpson meets Kerouauc thoughts on "Social Search" (with K-Fed and Britney pumping the chorus) and I hope Eurekster get bought by Microsoft is...
Coz it sounds good... but what does it really mean.. like when do u really use it... really... everyone.. when do u use it... when do u have to use it... over time too... forever.. not today.. I get tips from people already.. I know people already... Too many emails.. Telling me what to do.. What I "should" buy for dinner.. What should I do tonight.. (even if the footy is on)... If I search with you, will I necessarily find... And I still cant find what Im looking for.. I cant get no.. (chorus)... :P
posted by redbarren at 3:07 PM
<< Home