[Search-l] Short interview with Jeremie Miller

[John McCormac]

jer wrote:
> Access to the crawled content is just another wiki function, the  
> download activity will be transparent on any user page along with  some 
> global summary reporting tools.  If the community feels any user  is 
> misbehaving or acting inappropriately then they can take action,  it's 
> just a wiki.

It is early here and I'm not sure if I understand this correctly.

a: What you are saying is that the snapshots of crawled webpages will be 
available for download by anyone?

b: Wikiasearch denies any responsibility for the end use or abuse of 
this freely available set of the (copyrighted) data of others?

c: Wikiasearch hopes that people will be nice with the data and not 
abuse it and if someone abuses it, the community will admonish them 
after the fact?

d: Wikiasearch will be repackaging the copyrighted works of others and 
making them available for download?

> A great ecosystem to be part of by the way, if any of the work we do  
> helps any of them succeed then I'll be very happy :)

The whole "ecosystem" term is one that is greatly abused. The search 
industry is more like a group of medieval warring city states and 
countries. Each one is desperately fighting for its own survival in a 
highly competitive and dangerous environment. Many will remain at the 
warring city state level for years and only a few will rise to the 
empire stage of Google or Yahoo.

I think that you still do not understand the mentality of a search 
engine developer. Most of us would consider the market in which we 
operate in terms of threats and opportunities. These search startups are 
all busy working on search products. Some will succeed and many will 
fail. It is a business with a very high attrition rate. Those who 
survive tend to be somewhat cynical about new projects. We have to 
develop a kind of survival instinct that enables us to quickly determine 
what will work in the market and what will not.

>> The management, bundling and repackaging aspects is,
>> so far, perhaps the only innovative angles.
> 
> 
> Awesome, I'll take that as a compliment and build on it!

A compliment as dreadful as my poor grammar. :) Perhaps the manage, 
crawl and repackage aspect is the only innovative angle.

But in the end, what makes Wikiasearch different from those who compile 
spam lists? One of the main problems that search engines have with their 
indices is dealing effectively with spam. Your Wikiasearch project will, 
realistically, add to that search engine spam problem by providing the 
MFAs with the copyright content of others. Has Wikiasearch really 
thought about the implications both for the search ecosystem and from a 
legal point of view?

Regards...jmcc
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