A very brief introduction to WoBID (Worthless Business Idea of the Day). It’s a repository for those occasional ideas that pop up and wait around for action…
WoBID pt 1: Mihooglia
Starting point: I was wandering the house the other night and this thought came to mind; “In some ways the whole game is about search and I’m not prepared to give it away for a song.”
Everything humans do is about search. The process of decision making: choosing between a variety of options and determining the best pathway. Search, defined broadly, is everything. Or almost everything.
Basic idea: We should be careful about picking winners in this space because once they’re entrenched it may be hard to get rid of them. Google’s WAY ahead in most stats that people care about. My paranoia worries about a second coming of Microsoft – not so much a concern about overt acts of evil but the slow down in innovation that usually accompanies large concentrations of market power.
In the midst of these thoughts I came to realize that I’ve become locked in. Psychologically locked in to believing that Google is hands down the best.
It didn’t take much analysis to realize that this deeply held belief, a belief that drives a good amount of my daily activity was lacking the sort of foundation it seemed to require. With their 10th Anniversary in the news I realized it has been almost a decade since I first started using google.
My first search engine affair was with Alta Vista. It was a short romance and the switch away from Alta Vista was painless for two main reasons: (1) google was obviously better and (2) psychological stickiness was low – I’d only been using AV for a year or so and hadn’t grown very attached to her yet.
I never really went for Yahoo or MSN – maybe 30-50 searches TOTAL, over ten years. Tried mahalo, powerset, dogpile, cuil, etc… just out of curiosity to try the new thing. 3-5 searches max – then gone. I haven’t consistently used another search engine for ten years!
With that realization I understood that I don’t have any good reason for thinking that google’s search results are actually better – measurably more useful/accurate. I do believe that I, and many, many others, have been swept up in a group think tidal wave. Google may actually be better but we’ve lost our ability to make a reasoned argument in support of that belief.
So… I made a personal pledge. Start using Yahoo. and compare the experiences.
and I failed. It bordered on impossible – I felt like a smoker trying to quit. Every time the brain thought “search” [1. As I became tuned in to every search - I realized I was searching *a lot*, in fact, I wish I had stats for how many times I did searches, the keywords, categories, dates, etc... The way some bank/credit card bills get broken down into zones of spending + more advanced data mining + visualizations. A lifetime of my personal search data. Fuck MTV, I want my data!.], the automatic typing of “g” and then “o” began… I honestly couldn’t shake the habit.
Hitting Bottom: The first step is admitting the addiction.
Hi. My name is Chris and I’m a Google addict.
At the moment of revelation I wanted a utility that would allow me to run searches and kick back side by side results. A simple page with a search field that returns two pages of results. Glance to the left for Yahoo search results. Glance to the right for Google results. Aside from it’s power to loosen my addiction, it seemed damn easy to conjure up from a technical standpoint – imagine Blackle + Blackhoo.
And then the avalanche of follow-on ideas:
- One search field to rule them all[2. and really, why stop there? Why not just one Smart Field. It'd be like Ubiquity (which is killer) and the google/FF intuitive address/search bar. Why not make it a universal syndication/search field - push to anywhere, pull from anywhere. twitter, email, yelp reviews, calendar, weather, everything. and an iPhone/mobile app to do the same. Death to the mouse! Return of the Command Line! or something like that. I disgress...]! A single point of access for everything search: mash-up Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Wikia and anyone else you want (including verticals)
- User control of layout. Give the user fine-grained control over how the search results are displayed
- User refinement of search results and advertising: preferred sources, trusted reviewers, user-driven ad targeting, suppress duplicates, etc…
- Ability for users to layer[3. subply is an example of a video layering/ply product.] additional info on top of base results – both from third party sources (like Yelp, other users, etc…) or personal layers (annotations or any other data)
- Vertical/Specialty search: Automatic inclusion of OR easy access to, preferred/relevant vertical search results (airlines, car rental (kayak-style) + give access to other “silos” – image, video, or domain specific (science, law, etc…)
- Finally, securely open up the data with granular privacy mechanisms. Enable increased user control over their own data AND offer preferable returns on their efforts (i.e. For typing in searches (and using other data-generating web services) we give you FREE access to the service (which is obviously standard) + $$$. Return the maximum amount of value possible w/o having the system bog down in a chase for dollars and gaming of the system[4. Create a highly scalable ownership/profit sharing structure which efficiently incentivizes and rewards investors, builders, and users - more on this later.]
Recap: Since we’re at the 10 year point perhaps it’s a good time to look at where we’re at and what’s coming. Google nailed search but where are they headed? and where do we want to go?
A similar line of thought: from Doc Searls:
“Years ago, when the search engine category was a lot more competitive, I did a lot of comparing between contenders. For awhile HotBot was ahead, then AltaVista, then AllTheWeb/FAST… Not necessarily in that order, but you get the point.
Then Google won. Huge. They were just bigger and better than everybody at finding nearly everything.
But lately Google has frustrated me. When I do lookups for subjects, it gives results that include misspellings and other approximations, even when I use the “advanced” settings. Worse, it’s been useless at something it used to do perfectly: find old blog entries of mine.”
That’s all folks!
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