Washington D.C based community search engine Searchles has grabbed another angel round today, topping off $600K of previous funding with another $300K. More than half of that total funding has gone towards developing the proprietary search engine Dumbfind that underlies Searchles.
Searchles lets you save and tag via bookmarklet like Delicious, but has a finer grained control when searching and sharing links. Searching in Searchles looks through “circles” (ergo Searchles) of users based on their relationship to you. You can search through links posted by everyone, yourself, friends, friends of friends, people who favorite your posts, and groups. Here’s an example of a search for “search engine” within the Web 2.0 group. As Digg used to do, Searchles now also recognizes top users and groups in a ranking page.
The new funding comes closely behind Searchles recently released a “push-me/pull-me” widget that brings Searchles bookmarking, tagging, sharing, and commenting right to the page where the link was saved. When the javascript widget is installed on a link, it displays all the Searchles data for that link from the main Searchles site. Within the widget users can save the link to Searchles, tag it, comment, share the link, and quickly bring up other related Searchles links by tag.
Here’s an example for TechCrunch:
how does one pronounce “searchles”?
is it like “searchals” or perhaps “searchless”? or maybe “searchlez”? oh dear I’m starting to turn myself on.
they used to have in their logo “its pronounced circles”
its unique that a company need to explain how to pronounce their name.
what’s so difficult – it’s searchles…pronounced “serch-less”
anyways, these niche search engines are popping up left and right so fast it’s hard to realize the value they provide, if truly any
remains to be seen
After working so hard on building a great product they must be crying that the only thing we’re talking about is how we don’t know how to pronounce their name!
Rule 1: Make sure people know instantly how to pronounce your name. If people fear looking stupid by saying it wrong, they’ll avoid saying it all together – its word-of-mouth suicide.
@MArk: Agreed.Better tell them what they are else it will be buzzed around with different name.
It happened with google, the were named because by mistake they got a check which had “google” lol
Nick –
Folks – feel free to pronounce Searchles anyway you want – just spell it right (especially when you link to us) – the old slogan about “circles” was deliberately tongue-in-cheek.
many thanks for the write-up. We’re cracking up over the comments on the name. Helping our users turn themselves on was an unintended form of user recognition but we’re glad it works for yongfook!
@Ashish – we think it would be terrible if we suffered the same fate as google and have nightmares about it every night.
too bad all that money will go swirling down web2.0 toilet when they join the deadpool
i feel bad for those angels
don’t worry dumbfounder, you are in absolutely no danger of a google-like “mishap”. what amazes me is that you found $900k worth of idiot money willing to toss another corpse on to the very high pile of web clippers.
looking forward to buying cheap servers and aeron chairs (both hardly used) on dovebid in the next couple of years.
Not a very good domain name. I am sure there will be lots of typos resulting in driving traffic to Searches.com
Wow! It’s a dark cloud here today. What’s up all? Hey, the site is very cool actually. I have used it, and you all should be happy for someone. I mean, seriously, why the downer mood around here?
Rex
hey all, I posted a video of my super-sweet “aeron” chair:
http://www.sear...v%3Degwuglb9ldg
why rex? because the world is awash with real problems that need real brains with real payouts (both financial and otherwise) accruing to the problem solver.
watching all this talent and capital chase….nothing, its depressing. the market will correct this, but so slowly these days as vcs are awash with capital looking for a place to sit but low-barrier-to-entry turds.
dear budding young capitalist – go back to school and take chemistry, make a maximally efficient solar cell and you will be “sergey and larry” rich while saving the world. we don’t need another website.
Whoopee – it’s Friday! Chill man! I understand where you are coming from, but taking VC money and Angel money is sort of the same, but very different. I relate and think that a cheap solar cell or something nice to help out the dependance on oil would be great. But hey — we all can’t be doctors or chemists. Some have talents elsewhere.
What by chance are your talents to contribute to this world? I figure you have a ton by your reply. I’m not being sarcastic either. I just figure you are having a downer day or week.
Cheer up! It’s the weekend!
Rex
actually FWIW, In a weird way I definitely remember the name and how to spell searchles now…
On the subject of serach engines with funny names, a friend introduced me to http://clusty.com/ recently, and I’m finding it to be pretty cool.
yongfook, i have used clusty. it is reasonable tech but all it does is aggregates search results from google, yahoo, etc – so, there is nothing new to it except the format of its output. i tried searchles a few weeks back and frankly it took me a while to figure it out in a way that was relevant to me. i gather it has a lot of functionality, but i just use it to archive stuff i find and like. in doing so, i have stumbled upon a few people tagging and indexing similar stuff into the same groups – so, in that sense i am killing 2 birds with the one stone. i use it, google and myspace and i am pretty much covered…ck
I think all of the negativity is really uncalled for. It is not really what you said rather than how you said it which makes me think that there is a lot of envy and jealousy involved. Kind of in the same mold as the “I hate Michael Arrington because he is well respected and makes a lot of money” group.
I do give credit and respect to those guys out there (or anyone in particular) that has the guts to go one step further to secure the funding and capitalize on something they believe in — regardless of how bad or good the idea is.
Will it succeed, i don’t know (although i personally like them myself and would like to see them do well) but i’ll say one thing — they have 900,000 ways to think about how to make something of themselves, which i can honestly say that it is much more than most of us have here sitting in front of the computer, being smart commentors and criticizers.
You never know till you try right? If we have the attitude of burying something before it is even tested and proven — the likes of Google, Digg, Yahoo and company will have total domination as they won’t ever think about competition. The more variety we have out there of social bookmarking and networking sites, the better– why? because it creates healthy competition and we as the ‘consumers’ have all to gain from an improved product and the latest in technological features (from them trying to outdo each other).
If someone were to tell you 10 years ago that the very concept of bookmarking, tagging it and sharing it with everyone would make you a lot of money or be the latest trend — everyone will think you are the stupidest guy on the planet. Well, it doesn’t seem so stupid now is it.
I believe Searchles creates a good alternative to digg, as it takes away the hunger of actually trying to post irrelevant or as many posts as you can just for the sake of getting on the front page of their site. Digg has come to a point where it is not so much about sharing good bookmarks or “social networking” rather than to conquer the world with a front page digg (and the sudden spurt of traffic that comes with it) or to have bragging rights that you have submitted more stories with tremendous amount of diggs. To me, I would rather a have a site that goes back to basics of what social networking/ bookmarking is all about — and that is sharing information that everyone has not seen yet with no ulterior motive.
So without turning this into a boxing match I would like to say this … pablo and whoopee, if you think you have something better to contribute to the blogosphere or the WWW, I would like to see you do it and do one better than the 900k they got. Until you do, I think it is all talk and no substance — like I said, I sense a lot more envy then anything else. And also, every business has to have their own target market, not everyone can be engineer, doctors, web designers or be born to save the world. To think otherwise shows how much of a one track mind you have. I would like to think that I can find a cure for cancer but unfortunately that is way out of my league.
The name is not that bad, its not super great, but if your platform picks up who knows. I would consider changing it though, you can be a little more creative and generic is not that bad.
SearchCircles.com or SearchLess.com.
Just a thought
I think the social search engine is going to win, but the one that will win will be determined by the one that pays its submitters.
the searchles concept is very strong even if it is somewhat difficult to navigate initially. i think the name, while a little unusual, won’t determine the company’s level of success. i think it will appeal to a smarter audience. best of luck with it all. ck