Comments on: Sproose: Human Powered Search Meets Digg

By: Nick Tan

Nick Tan — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 03:37:27 +0000

Their system for delivering relevant results is a credible alternative to Google’s algorithm. I will disagree with almost everyone else commenting here and predict that Sproose will be very, very big. Especially if they do cute stuff like let webmasters put “Sproose Search” boxes on their sites, like Google did when it went after Altavista et al… True, they will have to fight spam, just like Google, but that doesn’t mean their model isn’t valid.

By: David Mackey

David Mackey — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 01:54:30 +0000

I am a humongous fan of social search (as I browse over to mahalo).

By: boomerang

boomerang — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 01:17:50 +0000

it will be interesting when it scales to see if /how different the results are from the “alg” guys.

By: Fabian

Fabian — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 01:02:56 +0000

I do not understand “human powered search”. Whatever happen with automation, efficiencies and objective accuracy?

Sorry, I do not get the value of this.

By: 2 game play station

2 game play station — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 23:23:51 +0000

PHP is the only way to go!

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 22:13:26 +0000

why not use PHP?

By: Aniq Rahman

Aniq Rahman — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 22:00:07 +0000

Check out http://www.allthat.com or http://www.allth.at — really cool SMART, persistent search application that actually will let you filter searches and aggregate based on what you need and keep searching for you on a daily basis.

By: san

san — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 21:07:50 +0000

Nice idea. I like Mahalo also, however I have the feeling that search engine as a business is getting inflationary. Can we all keep pace with every single search engine coming out? Also, why no one concentrates his efforts in translation. So far, I do believe that Google sucks abit. I made a brief comparison between Leo.org and Google, and to be fair to Google, their translation really let down

By: Jerome

Jerome — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 20:51:57 +0000

@Jessica,

Yes, I noticed the results are pretty good too. As far as I can tell they are using a combination of Google, Live, Ask, and maybe something else. Their FAQs don’t say how they get the results but each query takes time to process, and the results show excerpts as found on other engines..

By: brian

brian — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 20:49:11 +0000

Hmm, not sure how much more efficient and accurate the results will be when each queries needs to be pre-made…

By: Advice for search engine developer

Advice for search engine developer — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 20:30:29 +0000

If you decide to write search engine. Never use PHP script. VCs wouldn’t buy php search engine mode.

always JSP, ASP, ASPx, Perl, CGI, and other scripts.

By: Didn't find correct results

Didn't find correct results — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 20:16:46 +0000

Sorry… Search didn’t find the correct results.

You have lot of VC money… But you can’t always win the innovation.

By: Jessica

Jessica — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 20:08:13 +0000

The results are actually GOOD.

I’m trying to find out where / how they are getting them though?

The same search will NOT match goog/yahoo/msn results.. didn’t check ask.com however..

By: Steve S

Steve S — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 19:59:36 +0000

Very interesting, exactly what I was looking for out of Mahalo.

By: Alex Yakima

Alex Yakima — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 19:42:50 +0000

One more search engine based upon an exciting idea. But what if to forget about the ideas behind the product and just evaluate it fairly. The excitement is not so big now. People go to search system not to evaluate how sounds the idea but to succeed with search results.

By: Daily Deals

Daily Deals — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 19:36:27 +0000

Wait until the spammers have their way with it

By: MARK KLEIN MD

MARK KLEIN MD — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 19:15:37 +0000

That’s right I mentioned it- I’m Mark Klein, MD!

By: Alex

Alex — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 19:10:26 +0000

Like the concept. Unfortunately, there to much noise and competition in that space. But, as one of the posts above mentioned looking to “Facebook”, would be an interesting area to explore.

By: bored

bored — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 18:52:53 +0000

Yawn, yawn. Write about something that is unique and useful!

By: boomerang

boomerang — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 18:51:22 +0000

just some thoughts, spam cannot penetrate user voted sites, so the more votes the further down in the index spam goes. sproose has clearly thought about gaming the system, better to try that with seo on google.

By: Dekut.com

Dekut.com — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 18:46:47 +0000

Sproose: Human Powered Search Meets Digg…

Asking how many ways you can make a search engine is like asking how many ways you can scramble an egg, there are a number of different ways and although it’s not rocket science you can still end up with something inedible….

By: judo

judo — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 18:43:06 +0000

Is anyone else punching in for work at TC?

The only stories on TC are now from Duncan.

By: icebin

icebin — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 18:41:18 +0000

strange search. I prefer digg.

By: MajorNetworkNews

MajorNetworkNews — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 17:55:46 +0000

I can’t help myself…

Should be called the “sproose goose” after the Howard Hughes plain.

Brilliant idea, but won’t fly.

Also, in response to some comments above. I think all the new search engines probably no that they will not get that much traction in the face of google. But ! They are all hoping to be acquired by someone to help them compete with google (like yahoo, amazon, etc)…

By: DKMA

DKMA — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 17:55:23 +0000

Why are we regressing in our technology and business models? I thought the whole point was to maximize the intelligence of automation and add to it an element of human experience. Not replace it altogether with stand-by clerks.

Web 3.0 has been termed a Semantic Web – a web whereby the technology becomes intelligent enough to understand the needs of the user. Right, that was called AI a few years – so the concept is not new, but the execution of it is.

We’ve established such a sophisticated means to allow people to collaborate on topics (projects, sites, opinions, etc.) with our various social media. And the internet has offered such a low cost (money/effort) means to obtain my end goal. Why would I want to support a “search result consultant” ??

I used ChaCha a few times, and the cost to me was:
1. Time. By the time I got my first result, Google, Yahoo and Ask had it for me in triplicate.
2. Relevancy. They continued to ask me questions about why and what and how. Again, this is being coded – whether it be upfront questioning or categorizing results in chunks.
3. Dealing with the ignorant. There’s a psychological sense of frustration that occurs when you’re dealing with someone who just doesn’t get it. It’s one thing if a computer fails, it’s another if your “peer” does.

Sproose is getting it a bit more than ChaCha and Mahalo. But just remember, we’re not all equal. The term “architecture” can mean different things to people, demographics etc.

The engine should learn who the user is, and potentially offer the user the ability to use the ratings of similar users. In this manner, the results might be more appropriately fine tuned.

My $02.