Wikia To Launch Search Engine: Exclusive Screenshot

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1. Kosmo
   

   December 23rd, 2006 at 8:40 pm

   seems cool

   but whats wrong with wikipedia’s regular search feature?

2. peter
   

   December 23rd, 2006 at 8:47 pm

   Michael,

   seems unfair you cant invest in these companies . .. this one is a winner

3. Brandon
   

   December 23rd, 2006 at 8:55 pm

   I’m excited for this. This is great for people who aren’t as experienced with the internet. I cringe every time I watch an inexperienced user instantly clicks on paid Google advertisements and not find anything relative to what they were searching for.

4. skechy
   

   December 23rd, 2006 at 8:56 pm

   Unfair that you can’t invest in these companies?

   Call them up if you’ve got 7 figures!

5. emre
   

   December 23rd, 2006 at 9:12 pm

   Without computer automation, how is this any different from a directory? This is not a scalable solution, and a waste of human effort.

6. John
   

   December 23rd, 2006 at 9:15 pm

   What a terrible name. Google - easy to remember, easy to type. Wikiwhat? I’ve forgotten already.

7. Dr. Namovposter
   

   December 23rd, 2006 at 9:23 pm

   Well that’s ironic. The first three results of any google search are wikipedia pages.

8. Anshul
   

   December 23rd, 2006 at 9:24 pm

   Agreed the name is difficult to remember but this might actually prove to be a winner since if it just searches wikipedia, chances of spam are less but then again whats wrong with the regular search. Maybe they wanna monetize their search as well.

9. David Hunter
   

   December 23rd, 2006 at 9:30 pm

   The operative phrase is clearly the motto “Searching Wikipedia and its external links” and there will now be even more of a rush to get a link in Wikipedia. For instance, fastluxurycars.com has done quite well in the screenshot despite being a bit on the thin side, because they got a external link under the Wikipedia Toyota Camry Hybrid article. Comparing a Google Search on “toyota camry” at least hints at how weak the example results really are, but paradoxically how much Google loves Wikipedia. For now at least.

10. Josh Klinger
    

    December 23rd, 2006 at 10:16 pm

    The name needs to be changed to “wikify”. Wikiasari will never catch, Wikisearch was closer but drab.

    Will put a dent in all other search engines imo.

11. Bien
    

    December 23rd, 2006 at 10:27 pm

    Putting the human factor to search engine results will only make the SERPs worse. Another thing for black hat SEO’s and spammers to play around with.

12. Jeff
    

    December 23rd, 2006 at 10:31 pm

    The real answer to search and most likely the next google will be people powered search.

    Imagine a search engine where you entered in a search term and someone who is online responded with the results for you.

    They could promote their own sites or sites where they are affiliated.

    To stop people not being helpful for users, the ’search assistants’ get voted of graded as most helpful.

    The more helpful you are the better your rating, the more chance to drive traffic to sites incluing yours.

    It’s true that people are the best source of knowledge, machines are good at quantity, not quality.

    Goodbye Google

    JB

13. JP Richards
    

    December 23rd, 2006 at 11:24 pm

    Great idea. What about:

    1) Everyone rushing the Wikipedia and causing what happened DMOZ to happen to them?

    2) If Google drops Wikipedia?

    3) When implies their own patent for people-powered search?

    It will be interesting.

    Warmly,

    JP

14. SearcH EngineS WeB
    

    December 23rd, 2006 at 11:38 pm

    The SERPs results on the screenshot are NOT bringing up any Toyota.com pages.

    Toyota’s official site is the #1 listing on Google Yahoo MSN and Ask for that search.

    Wikipedia is also on the first page for all four majors.

    ★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★ ☆

    It will be interesting to see how they deal with the Link Popularity controversy, and the Banning of spam sites.

15. DavidEzra
    

    December 23rd, 2006 at 11:46 pm

    “and the remaining results are determined by sites wikipedia considers to be “reputable” because they are external reference links from wikipedia pages.”

    It will be interesting to see if this will dilute the value of Wikipedia itself as individuals will have an “incentive” to throw more energy into *gaming* Wikipedia itself (with SPAM links) in order to optimize their respective Wikiasari rankings?

16. Fashion Industry Ceo
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 12:01 am

    if you how to start a clothing line my blog…shows up…so I think google is handling its business!

17. Kevin Fischer
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 12:14 am

    I’m glad that someone is truly taking on Google. I wonder if Google will adapt if Wikiasari is a success.

18. Oliver
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 12:15 am

    Aiming at Google and using its search ads and results - it sounds SO RIDICULOUS. He is BSing his investors What about Semantic Web?

19. Drama 2.0
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 12:22 am

    The names “Google” and “Yahoo” might have been criticized initially, but they’re easy to say and they roll off the tongue. Unfortunately “Wikiasari” just seems like a completely awkward and poor name for a search brand. But at least you can call the users Wikiasarians.

    For what it’s worth, I agree with Oliver. Don’t see anything novel here and I’m always amused when a company’s model revolves around phrases like “community of trust.” It’s amazing that some people actually buy into this stuff. If this thing does get traction, it WILL be abused very quickly.

20. Silly Girl
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 12:25 am

    Nice idea, but couldn’t they come up with a more original page design. At first glance, it looks just like Google.

    And they definitely need to work on a better name. Wikisearch isn’t that bad.

21. Josh
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 12:44 am

    @ Comment #14: Actually, they are.

    fastluxurycars.com/Hybrid-Cars/2007-Toyota-Camry-Hybrid.htm is linked from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Camry_Hybrid for example.

    This seems more like a replacement for the current Wikipedia search than a real competitor to Google, et. al.

22. Josh
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 12:47 am

    Scratch that, I misread your comment. And in fact, you make a good point. Toyota’s official Camry page should be the first result in a search for Camry, but Wikipedia doesn’t apparently link to the Toyota site (at least not the US site–the main Toyota page on Wikipedia links to the Japanese site). That’s a fatal flaw in the design of this engine.

23. Diego
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 12:50 am

    Mmm I just don’t get it…

    Since when the wikipedia become a websites directory?

    I thought we already had del.icio.us for that… :/

24. Pat Kitano
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 12:53 am

    Asari is a Japanese word for “rummaging around”, but the word has some slovenly connotations and is used in context with, for example, homeless rummaging around or less than ethical people “searching” for prey… wonder if this will hinder a launch in Japan, a country that prizes their hierarchical vocabulary?…

25. Ralph Dagza
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 12:59 am

    i want one

26. forgiste
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 1:03 am

    So, if this works out, it may be a threat to google. Unless, of course, Google buys Wikia… Googlepedia anyone?

27. jason prado
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 1:08 am

    So Wales’ example is spot on and I’ve seen the same syndrome when searching for many, many things. I’m wondering how they’re going to get the community going. It’s different from Wikipedia- when I edit a page on Wikipedia I am supposed to feel like I am adding to the world’s body of knowledge. When I list a few hotels I’ve stayed in I feel like just another consumer talking to random consumers and thinking about it now I am totally unmotivated to do that.

    For the moment, by the way, I’d recommend using del.icio.us for searching for anything that’s likely to be spammed. It does a pretty good job even though it’s so simplistic.

28. Don Wilson
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 1:14 am

    It looks ironically like Google.

29. David Mackey
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 1:53 am

    Interesting. Though this will intensify spamming of Wikipedia as webmaster’s seek to become a “trusted resource”.

30. James
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 2:24 am

    Wales does correctly identify the problems with spam on Google. I also find a lot of problems searching for something and getting pages of review and price comparison sites, which actually don’t have any review or prices on them. In an interview Google said they knew that happened and it was completely fine - a legitimate candidate for being in the index.

    Jason is spot on - I’ve recently started searching del.icio.us for things and following the ones which have been bookmarked the most with fairly good results.

    Maybe what we need is something with Digg type tools to promote or bury a site in the SERPs? You’d soon “digg down” a spam site, and give a thumbs up to a good one.

31. Gordon Mohr
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 2:58 am

    I wonder about the screenshot; it appears to have come from this site:

    http://www.searchme.com/beta/

    Despite the Wikia badge at the bottom, there’s not an unambiguous statement of affiliation between ’searchme.com’ and Wikia.

    Also, the ‘Wikiasari’ name dates back at least 2 years; see it mentioned in this November 2004 page revision at Wikia, back when Wikia at first appeared to primarily be a wiki-style DMOZ rather than hosting:

    http://search.wikia.com/index......;oldid=658

32. O1743h5fq
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 3:00 am

    This seems like the original logo: http://flickr.com/photos/56001082@N00/331682519/

33. S.Z.
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 3:04 am

    I doubt it could really work well, as there are too many keywords for search. Digg’s spam tool works, but how could a tool works for millions of pages?

    Tech Tutorials: http://www.hotcoding.com

34. Stephen
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 3:11 am

    Huh?

    How about they fix the search on Wikipedia first. You need Google to find anything in Wikipedia. Same with Amazon. How hard is is to implement a “Did You Mean?” feature! Amazon should pull those eggheads at A9 over to the main site and get the search working.

35. lordmetroid
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 3:47 am

    A Digg’s spam toll works as long as people don’t have any problem with it. Controversial comments and so on is always dugg down because they don’t agree with what is states even though it can be true.

36. Eddie Truman
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 4:02 am

    And here has been me thinking for months that Wikipedia desperately needs Google as it’s search engine. Current Wikipedia search is useless, can’t do that one vital thing Google has of recognising that the inputted search term may not be 100% correct i.e. different spellings for the same entity or a basic spelling mistake.

37. Toufeeq Hussain
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 4:17 am

    This makes total sense. Most of my searches nowadays end up at Wikipedia. Why don’t we just bypass Google. Also wikipedia’s references on a particular topic are peer-reviewed and on-topic so not only do I get an explanation of what I’m looking for but I also get the best references and not have top bother “screening” Google search results.

    This ofcourse is based on the fact that you are looking for a particular concept/person/topic.

    Cheers!

38. Tim Starling
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 4:19 am

    Wikia does not own Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not involved in setting up this search engine; Wikia is an independent venture. Wikia is free to use Wikipedia content, just like any other company, as long as they follow the license terms.

39. Jimbo Wales
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 5:12 am

    The screenshot has nothing to do with anything related to the Wikia Search project, which in turn has nothing to do with Wikipedia.

40. slap slap
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 5:15 am

    Why are we even allowed to write comments on posts.. useless

41. arvil gray
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 5:16 am

    Therer is a certain amount or a great amount of intertia with a market leader such as google.
    It is tue that the Google product itself was spread successfully by “word of mouth” as being a better product as a search engine than the market leader at the time which was Yahoo.
    Yahoo still commands a good market share out of intertia and familiarity by formet users who know the system are familiar with it and are lax to change. Change is never an easy thing.
    Google has such a similar advantage with its users.
    As well Google has not been standing still and knows the lesson that a superior search engine service whose company has little marketing clout and presence can displace it.
    Still Google is such a dominant market force it is hard to imagine it being superceeded .
    http://www.vintagecomputermanuals.com

42. Adrian Keys
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 5:21 am

    Hey…I hope these guys have their “marbles” together and are not getting carried away. If Google cant find it then maybe…just maybe the results are not there.

    This to me is branching out into an area where there is dominant leader (not even Yahoo can keep up) without any revolutionary technology that will somehow show that they will be able to do better than any of the Engines out there.

    Cant understand the thinking…..

    http://www.jollyjo.org

43. Ren
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 5:51 am

    It would be interesting to know how will they combat the spam once the search feature it out. Wikipedia is still relatively clean from spam these days, but the search feature may draw more spammer in for the profit.

44. useAPI Search
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 6:01 am

    This is a Google killer, ads by Google!

45. Chris Abraham
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 6:02 am

    I think it is pronounced, “Wikia, sorry.” As in, I know you wanted either Google or Wikipedia, but your got Wikia, sorry.

46. Janson
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 6:45 am

    If they have any intelligence, they’ll ditch the wikiawhatever name and choose a simpler one. Dangit. Even wikisearch is better

47. Mathew Ingram
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 7:21 am

    Are you planning to update the post, Mike? Jimbo says the screenshot has nothing to do with Wikiasari.

48. joey
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 7:31 am

    Wikiasari = DOA as a SE. However, it could be an excellent replacement for their current onsite search system.

49. Mik
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 7:34 am

    Wikipedia taking on google? What a joke???? Is anyone else seeing this disgusting spam photo here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page ???

50. Robert Resalte
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 7:47 am

    Rumor has it that the Wikiasari engine comes from a start-up called searchme.com, formerly Kavam, funded by Sequoia Capital, the same guys who backed Google and Yahoo - there is big time money behind it.

51. matthew
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 8:08 am

    site sounds like it would beg to be gamed

52. Jon Perez
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 8:10 am

    > Try searching for the term ‘Tampa hotels’, for example, and you will > not get any useful results

    Yep, that’s when you can turn to Yahoo!

53. Jon Perez
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 8:11 am

    > Try searching for the term ‘Tampa hotels’, for example, and you will > not get any useful results

    Yep, that’s when you can turn to Yahoo!

    Really, try it.

54. Mike Puchol
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 8:29 am

    Well, ‘Tampa hotels’ brings up a bunch of sponsored links, such as Hyatt and Marriott, and a bunch of normal links to other hotels and travel sites. I wonder what is not useful about that.

    IMHO the power of a search engine is unleashed when the searcher knows how to formulate a good query. Maybe ‘Tampa hotel guide’ brings up better results. There is even an illustrated book, “Google: The missing manual”, for those of us with less than one working neuron.

55. WiBu
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 8:32 am

    Surely something like del.icio.us would be better for something like this?

56. carlos
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 8:34 am

    Have you checked how many people have registered wikiasari domains in different countries?
    Strange that these guys haven’t secured their domains before publishing the news!

57. Directorio
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 8:36 am

    And even stranger considering that they didn’t secure wikisearch before…
    Same mistake twice!

58. Mong
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 9:18 am

    Its need of time ..
    I think its in interest of common surfer to have more variety and competition in search engine niche to apply proper checks and balances over big players.

59. Jae
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 9:22 am

    I hope that screenshot is a fake. Otherwise, it’s just another search engine living in Google’s shadow. What’s the point? Most one-word searches on Google turn up Wikipedia entries anyway.

60. Eric
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 9:23 am

    I’d be curious to see what measures they’ll take to keep spam and marketing departments out. What’s to stop Toyota marketing from going in there and editing the entry to remove negative press, or put their preferred advertisements as top links?

    It’s a problem that already exists with Wikipedia and I don’t think they do enough to stop, particularly when it’s done subtly. (I remember I was reading the article on “Dandruff” a while back and stuck right in the middle was the sentence “The gold standard for Dandruff prevention is yadda yadda, found in Selson Blue”

    If this thing ever takes off, the problem would only be compounded. With enough money at stake, there will be some serious attempts at gaming the system - just look at the problems that Digg has.

61. David Dalka
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 9:23 am

    The current switching cost of a search engne customer is zero.

62. Jacob Levy
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 9:42 am

    I hope this fails as soon as possible. I will never use this, just like I never use Wikipedia, because I *know for a fact* that wikipedia is run by a bunch of biased elitist censors, and so will this new thing. Try to edit a popular article on Wikipedia and see how long your contributions last, or for that matter how long *you* last.

    The results on Wikipedia and Wikiasari are only as good as the lowest common denominator of who contributed them. Not a very confidence-inspiring thought… At least machine-based search has some algorithms that can be understood and predicted. Yes, they’re open to manipulation by SEO, but so what — algorithms can be improved over time, people — not.

63. Jacob Levy
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 9:46 am

    Eric I have a more basic question — why *should* anyone want to keep Toyota’s marketing department out of the SERPs? If they provide useful information about their cars, why does it not deserve to be listed?

    This idea that oh no, god forbid, we’re seeing a ’sponsored page’, our brains will turn to mush and we’ll just whip out the wallet and spend all our hard earned cash on a scam… C’mon, most people have more brains than that. For the rest of you, you should have stayed in kindergarten and continue to play with construction blocks.

64. Anthony
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 10:07 am

    This will never work, haven’t anyone heard of DMOZ.org??? WikiSearch is NOT wikipedia. Google allows you to find things that you will never find on this WIKISearch. I don’t want to find easy things, I want to find the strange things.

65. Anand
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 10:44 am

    It is intriguing to find ‘Sponsored Lists’ as part of the screenshot..

    Has Jimmy Wales finally started earning???

66. Ummwow
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 11:15 am

    Actually you do get useful results searching for ‘Tampa hotels’. About the only thing google doesn’t do well is searching for c/c++ code, since it cuts any special characters out of your “search string”. That’s the only thing any search engine could do that hasn’t been done.

    In fact, Wikipedia’s search page (that you get when your first search missed) doesn’t work half of the time. However if I copy my search term to the Wikipedia search box in firefox it works…

    Maybe you could fix that first Jimbo

67. Jennifer Lovell
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 11:18 am

    Wouldn’t something like this be bad, people could still find a way to game the wiki system. I mean if Amazon is an investor, surely they’ll expect some of there pages to be ranked as “high quality”.

68. Ummwow
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 11:20 am

    …and formulas… why can google tell you the answer to 2 + 3, but not give you search results for something like x^2 + y ^2, or O(n^2 log n) ?

    Certainly wikistupidname isn’t going to be able to do this either.

69. Already being done....
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 11:31 am

    Jatalla.com is already doing 100% people-powered search: http://www.jatalla.com.

    As Jeff said above: “The real answer to search and most likely the next google will be people powered search…. It’s true that people are the best source of knowledge, machines are good at quantity, not quality.”

    I agree.

70. Yokoiz
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 12:37 pm

    Hmm will this make my Wikipedia stocks on trendio go up? http://www.trendio.com/word.ph.....anguage=en

71. Dave G.
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 12:50 pm

    #13 & #63 are on the money.

    DMOZ has been at this for many years and it sucks.

    I use wikipedia on rare occasions…A year or two ago I tried adding an external link to my site within a certain article…If users were reading this article, they would surely be interested in my site - it was a very relevant link IMHO. My link was deleted within 24 hours by what can only be called the wikinazis.

    There are big, huge, massive problems when you allow people to control content - just look at digg & dmoz…the systems are gamed. With DMOZ - if a competitor is the “editor” of your category - forget it…you will never get listed. And with Digg - there are only about 100 people who get stories promoted to the homepage.

    It just doesn’t work…or at least…no one has found a way to make it work - yet.

72. Dan
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 2:54 pm

    that reminds me of another search engine i’ve seen. it starts with a g….ends with an e, i want to try it though

73. shannon
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 3:11 pm

    read this on http://www.wikiasari.com

    Reporters and bloggers note: Amazon has nothing to do with this project. They are a valued investor in Wikia, but people are really speculating beyond the facts. This has nothing to do with A9, Amazon, etc.

    Help me out, spread the word. I am looking for people to continue the development of wikiasari. Specifically community members who would like to help build people-powered search results and developers to help us build an open-source alternative for web search. Discuss here. Join the mailing list. —-Jimbo Wales 23:24, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

    Update: The TechCrunch story is also wrong. This project has nothing to do with the screenshot they are running, and this search project has nothing to do with Wikipedia.

74. carsten cumbrowski
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 3:41 pm

    It states “Search Wikipedia and its external Links”.

    I hope that will make some editors at wikipedia loosen up a little and actually listen to discusions about what link to and what not and not just settle for a link to a DMoz or Yahoo! Directory Category.

    Jimbo and his Wikiasari Project do not benefit from such attitude. Quite the oposite. It would hurt the Wikiasari search Result Quality.

75. Anthony Lieuallen
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 4:14 pm

    “We just look at the page. It usually only takes a second to figure out if the page is good, so the key here is building a community of trust that can do that.”

    BZZZZT! Wrong. This search engine _will_ fail. There is no such thing as “good” or “bad”. There is only appropriateness for a particular situation. Since there are many many situations, each page has many different “goodness” or “badness” scores. You can’t just “build a community of trust”. It’s orders of magnitude more complex than that.

76. useAPI Search
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 4:40 pm

    Look at the name: Google. What does it mean?
    The web volume is exponential growth. It’s changing by microsecond.
    We can’t go back, period.

77. Web 2.0 Innovations
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 8:24 pm

    Pretty unfair game, Google helped a lot (keeps helping) of Wikipedia in getting to the point where it is today, mainstream popular site… In my view more than 50% (I’d bet on 70%) of all searches performed on Google are organically directed to Wikipedia’s web properties…
    My 2 cents

78. ravianz
    

    December 24th, 2006 at 11:27 pm

    its ironical to compete with G by using their results somehow!

79. Ted
    

    December 25th, 2006 at 1:38 am

    This will put TREMENDOUS pressure on wikipedia. If this search engine takes off, it’s going to require the amount of (FREE, UNPAID) work by wikipedia editors to expand 10 fold.

    This has the potential to ruin Wikipedia more then it already has been by spammers, etc. And it means that getting legitimate links into wikipedia will be that much harder.

    I am not a very active wikipedian, I edit perhaps 10 articles a month and have contributed about 10 new articles, but I can see that such a project may be good for Jimbo, but it’s not good for wikipedia.

    I want to edit wikipedia so I can help spread knowledge, not to A. help enrich others or B. get into endless wars over what links should be allowed and what shouldn’t.

    Perhaps Wikipedia will have to outlaw outbound links because of this? Otherwise every day will be a battle.

80. Tom
    

    December 25th, 2006 at 6:55 am

    Yes we all know that google can and does produce so