Wikia Search Goes Online Next Week

[Dan01]

Does anyone know how this is going to work?

Wikia co-founder and chairman Jimmy Wales announced the public will get its first view of Wikia Search, an open source, community-driven search engine, on January 7. Wales admits his company's search engine is not an immediate challenger to Google or Yahoo (NSDQ:YHOO), but hopes the community construction of the search engine will bring increased transparency to the method by which search results appear.

On Monday, search enthusiasts can start building Wikia Search by filtering and ranking search results using open-source software and community-based editorial influence that will result in a more transparent process that allows end-users to see how search results are obtained. Wales says he hopes to have an index of between 50 to 100 million Websites when the search engine launches. "This is the public launch of a full-scale, high quality search engine," he says. "We're looking at every point in the process to see where we can push the editorial control out into the community."

Wales is aware of the reports eager to position this as another Google (NSDQ:GOOG) vs. Wikipedia-style battle, and he acknowledges Wikia Search is launching to "change how the industry works" while admitting his company is taking a different approach. "All of the software we're creating is going to be open-source," he says. "One of the things that's really important to us is it's essentially a political point."

Wales says pretending search results come from "some magic algorithm" doesn't help the concept of democracy or transparency, which goes against the characteristics the Web embodies. "All of these things are parts of the puzzle, but it's all going to be released under free license," he says. "The amount of human editorial influence will be much higher than anything we've seen before."

Despite the likelihood Google and Yahoo will continue their dominance in the search engine market, Eric Raymond, President Emeritus and co-founder of the Open Source Initiative, says Wikia's initiative is an inherently positive foray. "More open-source competition is always good; even when it doesn't achieve huge market- or mind-share, it keeps incumbents healthily scared," he says. "I'm glad Wikia is happening, if only because somebody needs to keep Google nervous."

Wikia Search Goes Online Next Week

[AussieWebmaster]

I think there will be the opportunity to have ongoing voting about the serps.

[Dan01]

Wikia will also give away the code, just like any open source project. You can add to it, make your own modules etc.

But what about the database? I have heard that they will used the shared resources of personal computers to store the information. In other words, you can sign up and turn your computer into a resource for the SQL data, I guess.

[AnthonyCea]

Are these guys related to SearchMe.com ?

http://searchme.com/press/

Because they have been very aggressively spidering the web of late.

[AussieWebmaster]

no they do searches of wikipedia itself....

[beu]

Should be interesting!

[AnthonyCea]

Originally Posted by AussieWebmaster

no they do searches of wikipedia itself....

They must have some sort of relationship, either that or they will be competitors.

Can anyone explain if they have intelligence and what the differences will be ?

[AussieWebmaster]

http://www.wikiseek.com/index.php?q=forex
it just gives wikipedia pages as results

[AnthonyCea]

But look at the bottom of your search, it says copyright Searchme.com, so this must be Jimmy Wales holding company.

http://searchme.com/press/releases/001.php

I will look into it further later on unless you guys clear it all up.

[Dan01]

I think wikia bought a search engine (maybe open source back then too) from LookSmart. I think they have been working on that as a base.

[AussieWebmaster]

wikia and searchme are two different companies - search me is using wikiseek to create an engine that searches wikipedia only

[fthead9]

Here's a video of Jimmie Wales explaining the origin and elements of Wikia. http://fora.tv/2007/07/18/Jimbo_Wale...ing_Into_Wikia

It sounds interesting, guess we'll find out more tomorrow.

[AussieWebmaster]

interesting site

[rustybrick]

http://www.techmeme.com/080107/p13#a080107p13

It is live, but are people happy?

Check it out at alpha.search.wikia.com

[beu]

Originally Posted by rustybrick

It is live, but are people happy?

As not one search engine (Google, Yahoo, MSN, Wikia) ranks top 30 for "search engine" these are interesting results for sure!