[Search-l] LA Times On Wikia / Search Wikia

[John McCormac]

The LA Times ran an article on Wikia and searchwikia.

http://www.latimes.com/features/magazine/la-tm-wikia.03march2,1,4786701.story

It namechecks a few people and even mentions Ayn Rand. Though I think 
that the whole concept of searchwikia and wikis in general would be a 
bit altruistically socialist in nature. The article is quite enlightening.

The point made by Charlene Li of Forrester Research that “Wikipedia 
worked really well because there really wasn’t anything else, but Wikia 
Search is up against very tough competitors who are very, very good.” is 
a very  important one. And it is one that has cropped up repeatedly on 
this list.

In the search business, searchengines have to have a unique selling 
proposition. Altavista had it with the size of its index. Google had it 
with relevance and page rank. Searchwikia has its social network.

The article leaves the question of searchwikia's survival unanswered. 
Searchwikia might have an impact on the search business but opinions on 
that are split.

One question not covered by the article is whether searchwikia is just a 
social network based on the Wikipedia model with an underlying search 
facility or a real search engine based on providing accurate and 
relevant results with a social networking overlay. The answer to that 
question may decide the fate of searchwikia. If it is the former, then 
searchwikia is, perhaps, a more up-to-date version of Dmoz.

Ask.com had, I think, about 4.7% of the US search market in December 
2007. It has recently given up the search angle. Microsoft is trying to 
take over Yahoo. The market is still in a state of flux and there are 
opportunities for well thought out searchengine ventures. If searchwikia 
could even get 1% of this search volume it would be doing well.

A viable search engine has to have both relevant results and users. The 
Catch 22 is that without the relevant results it will not attract users. 
And that may be where the social networking element comes in. John 
Palfrey of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law 
School, as quoted in the LA Times article, seems to be optimistic in 
that he thinks that Jimbo is "leveraging many of the same things that 
made Wikipedia a global force" and that "Wikia can have a huge impact on 
search engines over time.".

A good search engine is like a telephone directory in that it provides 
the user with what they are searching for with the minimum of fuss. 
Searchwikia, with its mini-articles is more like a tourist guide than a 
  telephone directory. A classical search engine seems to be aimed at a 
user who knows what they want to find. Searchwikia seems to be aimed at 
a user who doesn't know what they want and is not sure if they even want 
to find it - hence the mini-articles which interrupt the search process. 
The deceptive simplicity of the search results interface of the major 
search engines is one that was arrived at through a process of 
evolution. The search engines that didn't evolve didn't survive.

Search engine development is a quest to put knowledge in context. It is 
the process of turning information into knowledge. Wikipedians may be 
driven by a need to explain whereas search engine developers may be 
driven by a need to understand. This is the fundamental way, I think, in 
which search engine developers differ in outlook from many Wikipedia 
contributors. Extending the idea, searchwikia is an attempt to impose a 
social structure on the information of the web. Search engine 
development is based, to a large part, on the idea that algorithms can 
be used to turn the information of the web into knowledge. If you can 
understand, you can measure. If you can measure you can create an 
algorithm. If you can create an algorithm, you can automate the search 
process. This philosophy seems diametrically opposed to the searchwikia 
model.

However searchwikia will have a hard battle to fight against Google and 
a possible merged Yahoo/Microsoft. They are not going to willingly give 
up marketshare to searchwikia or any other venture.

Regards...jmcc
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John McCormac  *  e-mail: jmcc at whoisireland.com
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