[Search-l] information-revolution.org

[Nathan Braun]

Money is good.  Nonprofits (like Wikipedia) need money.

Profits simply won't work if we want to realistically compete with google
over the medium to long-term.

Being a nonprofit would be _the_ chief advantage to competing with google.
It would give Wikia Search unprecedented "moral authority."

I mean: who gets the money? Jimmy Wales?  Why profit?  Profit does not make
sense in this world we're living in, except for traditional corporations.
Profit is from a bygone era- the world of separation, not where everybody
connected like today.

Profit implies dis-connection, IMO.  Somebody or some entity is accumulating
undue advantage. This adds unnecessary friction to the market in general and
our product in particular.

NB

On 5/23/07, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at waterwiki.info> wrote:
>
> A great search engine is going to turn up commercial sites and products
> which relate to the search. Since we are going to display them anyway, why
> not charge a little?
>
> How about highlighting business and products which support us and make a
> little blurb about "Support our sponsors". But without changing their
> ranking. This could include investors in Wikia like Amazon. But could
> include a mom and pop cheese shop too. Assuming the search was for cheese
> in Miami and the shop has a website that shows up in a legitimate search,
> like "Miami" "blue cheese".
>
> I think the money would pour in. We could even have levels of support
> highlighted in different ways.
>
> But, you know, no support at all and that unhighlighted link is still
> there to click on. So if ebay never gives us a penny a search for online
> auction is still going to return ebay. But not highlighted. I guess we could
> program a kind of "aura" which surrounds links to sponsors. After all, they
> would be angels, of a sort. A golden aura would be of the first rank...
>
> Fred
>
> -----Original Message-----
> *From:* Nathan Braun [mailto:nathan at litepost.com]
> *Sent:* Wednesday, May 23, 2007 09:44 AM
> *To:* search-l at wikia.com
> *Subject:* Re: [Search-l] information-revolution.org
>
> Wikia Search should not be for profit.  Period.
> That is the only way we can realistically outdo Google, at this point in
> time, IMHO.
>
> On 5/22/07, Seth Finkelstein <sethf at sethf.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, May 22, 2007 at 10:33:25AM +0200, Dirson wrote:
> > > If a project aims to beat Google, must it appeal to users' sense of
> > > justice (fight the monopoly), or must it offer them a cool search
> > > engine?
> > >
> > > Let's remember that Google didn't spend any buck on marketing.
> > > There're enough tools on the Internet to spread the existence of a new
> > > search tool. If it rocks, users are to adopt it.
> >
> >         Well, while maybe a product which is super-insanely-successful
> > generates its own marketing, that doesn't mean only
> > super-insanely-successful
> > products are successes of any sort. That is, marketing can be part of
> > a moderately successful product. And there's plenty of good search
> > innovations which don't get much notice (my favorite example here is
> > clusty.com , which does result clustering, and can really help in
> > searches which are heavily spammed - I have no connection to it, I
> > just like it).
> >
> >         And one reason I believe some search experts might be
> > underestimating the Wikia-search's chances at a (moderate) success is
> > that due to Wikipedia's ultrahigh profile, Wikia-search sure doesn't
> > lack for publicity and marketing! (we must pause here for the
> > obligatory disclaimer that the Wikia corporation and Wikipedia are
> > not FORMALLY connected - but my statement is still accurate).
> >
> >         "Beat Google" is a good marketing hook.
> >
> > --
> > Seth Finkelstein  Consulting Programmer  http://sethf.com/
> > Infothought blog - http://sethf.com/infothought/blog/
> > Interview: http://sethf.com/essays/major/greplaw-interview.php
> > _______________________________________________
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>
>
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