Company: 
Chris Pirillo has launched Gada.be today - a powerful tag meta-search engine that has an incredibly simple and thoughtful design. Shayne Sweeney is the developer who’s building Gada.
Gada takes a query and runs it against sites like Google News, Technorati, Flickr, IceRocket, Amazon, Wikipedia, 43Things, etc. Searches can be narrowed via a drop down box to “photos”, “social” etc. for more specific results. The search itself, and any narrowing, are also accompished via the domain name. For instance, a photo search for “web2con”, the tag people are using for last week’s web2.0 conference, is also accomplished by the URL web2con.gada.be/p. The query is the subdomain, and the photo filter is the /p at the end.
Allowing easy searches and filtering via the domain name structure is brilliant, and allows for very powerful mobile searches. Note also that the name “Gada” is extremely easy to type on a phone’s number pad.
It was borne out of several frustrations. If you’ve ever tried to visit a Web site over a mobile device, you know it’s a pain in the knuckle. The domain had to be simple to key-in from anywhere. gada.be is 4232.2233 on most cell phones and PSPs. Normally, when you want to find something online, you have to choose a Web site (wait for the page to load) enter the query (wait for the second page to load) then see results from that provider. With “gada.be,” you insert the query *AS* the subdomain!
Then, there’s having to visit several sites just to get the results you want. Often, this isn’t feasible when you’re on-the-go. Even when you’re sitting with a laptop or chained to a desktop, it’s still a time-consuming process. We all love the individual search services, so why not bring ‘em together? Okay, that’s what we did. Moreover, we dynamically output OPML which you can turn around and import into your favorite news aggregator. gada.be saves everybody time!
It’s likely that Gada will become a much-linked to site for definitive results on a term, in a similar way as wikipedia is today. Gada incorporates all relevant information in a permanent URL, and so becomes a comprehensive result set for a tag link. Gada also outputs search results in RSS and OPML, allowing users to easily subscribe to and organize searches.
More on Gada on their about page.
Zzzzzz. This thing is maddeningly slow… NEXT!
“Gada incorporates all relevant information in a permanent URL, and so becomes a comprehensive result set for a tag link”
Yes, but aren’t the sources being used by the permalink dynamic? So the URL may be permanent but the results are not.
And I think proclaiming that “it’s likely that Gada will become a much-linked to site for definitive results on a term, in a similar way as wikipedia is today” is a bit much, right?
I’m sure it’s cool, but man, that’s a little over the top.
Ditto comment #1.
Regarding speed, Gada was slow due to massive traffic. They’ve added a server.
Well, it constantly returns “No results” for terms where just Google return few millions.
I have to agree with you review of the site I think it will be one of those must use sites. I talked about it a bit on my blog as well. I am glad to see the spedd issues are fixed.
Should be muuuuuuuch faster now, and it’ll get increasingly better.
TechCrunch has mega power.
watch this space: http://blugg.com/gada
also try a gada.be opml link in the entry box on here:
http://hosting.opml.org/kossob.....sopml.html
Lovers of techcrunch and OPML (and Flash) can also use this:
http://hosting.opml.org/kosso/.....nch20.html
ya gada.love.it !
Deceptive marketing on the website is offensive. Chris, you will make money in the long (or even short run) if the product is good. Deceptive GoogleAds piss off users like myself. The difference between 15 mins of fame and long term gis is user loyalty and no user like to be loyal if the trust is not established.
If their server slow because of the popularity, then that is a good problem. That would validate that Internet users worldwide are looking for something different and new.
I wish them well on their venture.
Color me underwhelmed. Right, when I’m searching for information what I *really* want are the results from Flickr and SeekItAll (WTF?).
kps: what would a CP site be if it wasn’t drowning in ads?
I assume the relatively clean interface is so Chris can actually find stuff that’s impossible to locate amongst lockergnome’s adathon approach.
I love the URL structures / system that they have come up with. This is very clever and a great way to search. However, their engine is super slow. I guess they did not expect all of the traffic and were not prepared for it.
Brian, I disagree with your comment, but I have to say that “underwhelmed” is one of my favorite words. The other is “ginormous”.
You should check out the filters in the drop down box, they may help you find the exact content you are looking for.
Jeff (comment no. 3), I think the fact that the results are dynamic is the point…Wikipedia, technorati and other highly linked sites have dynamic results, and so stay relevant over time. If people want to link to static content, they’ll use another source of information.
I am often accused of being over the top and overly effusive in my profiles. I can’t help it. I really, really love this stuff. New companies are art to me.
I think it is absolutely brilliant!
I have to agree with Jeff (comment #3). The site was online for all of five minutes before you annointed it the next Wikipedia. I appreciate your enthusiasm, but the comparison was a bit much for me as well.
Time will tell what Gada morphs into, but my initial impression is that it’s Dogpile 2.0. Yawn. Color me underwhelmed as well.
>>>If you’ve ever tried to visit a Web site over a mobile device, you know it’s a pain in the knuckle.
They misunderstood what the ‘pain’ is.
This is ‘NOT’ a mobile search site, as the result set is not geared towards mobile devices.
If anyone wants to talk about mobile search, I tend to feel the conversation should begin with the goal of providing a proper result set. Those who do not agree simply need to pull out their phone and try browsing the results from a search. The only people who ‘may’ get a viewable experience are those with Opera’s mobile browser, w/ it’s Small Screen tech. You will find the experience very frustrating.
This is not a search solution for mobile devices, even if the name is short to type in. If someone wants to launch a mobile search service, it’s going to take more work than background API queries to existing search solutions.
>>>Note also that the name “Gada†is extremely easy to type on a phone’s number pad.
Did you guys try it on your phone?
I just loaded the site on my Moto V551 and I’d say it’s most definately ‘not’ a mobile search solution.
Mobile Search is still up for grabs…
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