Rich Skrenta: blekko.com will presumably launch in 3 months [video] | Hacker News Reader

Rich Skrenta: blekko.com will presumably launch in 3 months [video]

marcus-schuler.com

16 pointsprakash6 comments

good luck guys! I hope it will turn out great! :)

search is no longer a technical problem, it is a marketing problem. yahoo continues to throw money at search and has good people...yet their search marketshare is going nowhere. microsoft bought powerset, pours a bajillion into research...they're still likewise making no inroads against google. its possible that skrenta knows something no one else does, but i doubt it. the challenge isn't building a search engine, its getting people to use it. for 99% of the market, search === google, and i don't see that changing

It's both. Google is still technically superior to the rest as well. Technically, search is far from being done. There are many interesting approaches in HCI, IR and systems remain to be tried. I really hope that blekko can come up with something more interesting than yet another cuil.

Even as something like Yahoo search has approached parity with Google on core results -- in fact sometimes surpasses, when I'm trying to find a document I know exists somewhere -- Yahoo has neglected to do some little, easy things that could help make it my primary search.

For example, no "define:" operator, and their calculator/units-conversion isn't as good as Google's.

I know these aren't key to the mass-market, but really: why let tiny things -- things an intern could add -- remain as gaps compared to Google? It gives me the impression no one is minding the store, methodically fixing everything that could prevent a person from switching.

People said that about AltaVista before Google came along. I think what blekko is trying to do is fundamentally change the way you interact with a search engine. If they can do that, and do it in a way that truly improves the experience, then the users will follow.

Skrenta is very clear-eyed about Google's domination, see for example:

http://www.skrenta.com/2007/01/winnertakeall_google_and_the_...

So I'm very curious to see what he's cooked up to make a dent in that.

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