[Search-l] Grub Update

[Seth Finkelstein]

	I've been keeping my head down on this list since the last
brouhaha, but I find myself in the odd position of being the most
"optimistic" about Wikia Search in the set of people who aren't just
worshipfully echoing the hype. So ...

On Wed, Aug 01, 2007 at 03:34:26AM +0100, John McCormac wrote:
> The reason that most of these mini search engines fail after eighteen
> months or so is because they run into the brick wall of the acquisition
> problem. (Similar to that of the web directories that rely on user
> submissions.) 

	I suggest there's a path that Wikia Search doesn't have to
really be a "Google-killer" in order to be very profitable. All of
that is PR and sales-pitch, but it's not necessary for "success" as
defined in investment terms. That is, if Wikia ends up with a search
engine that's superior on the topics of computer hardware, comics,
anime, science fiction, Star Trek, Star Wars, and porn (reflecting
the interests of the demographic which will likely be contributing
intensively ...), though awful on everything else, that's still
probably worth a lot of money in targeted advertising sales.

	Read up on "wikigroaning" to see what I mean:
http://www.wordspy.com/words/Wikigroaning.asp

	Also, keep in mind that there's a whole network of
digital-sharecropping electronic plantations, excuse me, I mean Wikia
"community sites", which can be used *both ways* to eventually support
Wikia Search - as recruiting material for free workers and data to
build the high-quality index, and as a partner market for users of the
search engine. I don't think that *Wikipedia* itself would be used
that way, due to legal requirements, but all the commercial Wikia
sites are another story.

	So URL detection is partially solved by data-mining the Wikia
sites, or relying on people *in that group* to know of new good sites
for that *particular area*.

	Think of it as effectively a vertical search for "geek topics".
That's a much smaller domain than Google.

	What's so unusual here is that most small search startups
begin with technology, then try to get an audience. But this project
is the reverse, beginning with marketing, and trying to have the
*audience* build the technology and everything else.

-- 
Seth Finkelstein  Consulting Programmer  http://sethf.com/
Infothought blog - http://sethf.com/infothought/blog/
Interview: http://sethf.com/essays/major/greplaw-interview.php