Comments on: searchme; the “Apple” of your Search Eye?

By: Eva White

Eva White — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 10:53:41 +0000

See the very fact that Serch Engines are still doing so well can lead to a few stray bucks falling the newcomer's way. Eva White's last blog post..Charging Your Phone? Forget It!

By: Nicole Price

Nicole Price — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 18:28:16 +0000

you never know. Long odds are known to hit the jackpot every now and then! These guys are not exactly boy scouts. They are playing an adults' game and putting big bucks where their instincts tell them to. Nicole Price's last blog post..Home Decorating? Here are some Ideas

By: Franz

Franz — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 12:58:23 +0000

hi sean

take a minute and check out http://www.facesaerch.com

currently whit some popularity in japan and china
built without venture capital but with the love of creative coding and open APIs and free available scripts. http://www.facesaerch.com/facesearch/?q=%22Sean+Maguire%22

By: Sean Maguire

Sean Maguire — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 21:47:04 +0000

@Chris – Seems you had the same problem with the bot “Charlotte”, crawling your site that Richard Baxter, the guy I referenced in the article, had.

My thoughts were focused on their UI, as opposed to how they crawl a site, which definitely seems to be a problem. Thanks for the note.

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 20:04:45 +0000

Searchme is doomed for failure in my opinion. The VCs are throwing good money out the window.

There are also quite some problems with the searchme bot ….

http://seoker.com/2008/05/20/searchmecom-the-worst-search-engine-ever/

By: Sean Maguire

Sean Maguire — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 17:34:43 +0000

@Mike – I was thinking more in terms of their disambiguation feature and a few other things not related to the UI, however even then I haven’t researched enough to know what, if anything, they possess that is patented. It does seem that their UI somehwat mimicks that of spacetime.com, which I believe is patented or pending.

Admittedly, I’m somewhat of a cheerleader for startups and although I personally have yet to see one that I think can grab even 1% in marketshare, I do think one will come along. We’ll see.

@Erika – Well stated. Between searchme and spacetime, and the combination of visual and 3D features, I do think they will strike a chord in some. Nevertheless – getting people to change their search brand and habits is no easy feat regardless of how interesting the product may be.

By: Erika

Erika — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 16:58:34 +0000

As a web developer, I appreciate searchme’s ability to allow me to scan my client’s competitors that much more efficiently. It makes it easier for me to pick out which sites have features worth exploring, as well as what sites appear to have had some type of SEO effort exerted (with the highlighting of the keywords in the text.) Furthermore, it makes my life a litle easier, because when I have clients who have little [to no] idea what kind of design they want, I tell them to search a few relevant keywords and go shopping, so to speak. I will say this, though. That algorithm needs a major amount of work.

I can definitely appreciate the effort and I love the idea, but they have a lot of work to do. A LOT.

By: Dean

Dean — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 14:32:36 +0000

cute – yes
functional – no

By: Mike Moran

Mike Moran — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:30:52 +0000

I wrote a post on this a couple of weeks ago (http://www.mikemoran.com/biznology/archives/2008/05/do_you_want_a_vis ual_search_en.html), agreeing with your initial assessment, but haven’t gone back and looked since. I think visual search will become a feature of the big engines and that Google’s real competition will come from outside a frontal assault on search. I don’t think there is any intellectual property that prevents the big engines from borrowing ideas from the small fry, especially when they are so out in the open, like a better UI.