Ontario based Groovle has a such a simple business model, it’s worthy of asking “why didn’t I think of that?” Groove uses Google Custom search in conjunction with picture hosting to offer custom Google search pages.
Users have two options in terms of how a Groovle page looks; they can either select from a list of preexisting pages or upload their own picture. Groovle offers an extensive variety of ready to use pages in categories including celebrities, nature, space, and sport.
Groovle makes its money from the search results generated by Google Custom Search, and given that those results are delivered by Google the business runs on a low cost, low barrier to succeed model. Sports fans, celebrity lovers, and anyone looking for a basic search oriented (ie one without widgets) custom start page who don’t want to create one themselves will like Groovle.
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what sort of money can they actually make with this model?
very good.
to #1 - read about google Coop.
the same way firefox homepages make their money.
What ever happened to Microsoft’s Miss Dewey?
thank you for introduction, looks like funny
anjelina is hot .
Great Idea, think they will have about 100 competitors by tomorrow.
This is indeed a great idea. I like it.
Egbert
Can’t see myself using this more than once; bored already.
Hey Duncan.
Great Post!
Very encouraging to see how with basic element we use everyday we can make a business.
This post goes hand-by-hand with the recent made by Michael of the guy who made resizing pictures with Adobe Photoshop.
Maybe you want to consider to open a chapter in your blogs about “basic mixed products that make something better,” now that we talk so much about “mashing.”
It would have the “how-to” market, which is huge.
Mario Ruiz
@ http://www.oursheet.com
Having Angelina in the background will make my search results sexier?
Anyway…
A very simple idea that will be replicated in no time.. This looks like a parasite company . A parasite of google ….For making money they will use google ads again?
I agree with the others, it is a great idea but how long will it take for someone else to come along and copy what they are doing. I hope they have more features beyond this that they plan on implementing to keep them ahead of their soon to be competitors.
I do like the fact that you can use your own images, I am sure my grandmother will be one of their first users, if she could only figure out how to turn on her computer.
Ken
I would copy it if they didnt take such a good name!
Would be cool it it worked with iGoogle
I don’t think I will be using this. I normally just do Google searches from my toolbar anyway. If I want a pic of a celebrity, nature, ect, I will place them on my Desktop. Nice pics of Jessica Alba though!
Im afraid that the pictures are to erotic for my taste
How can someone else make money off of Google’s search results? After all, Google makes it money off Google’s results. I can’t imagine Google allowing this.
It willl be interesting to see whether google makes some huffing noises over the domain name useage. Remember what happened to Booble?
The groovle.com domain was for some years parked with only an imitation
google logo and search box - and links to the owners’ blogs. I think it got some traffic just from the similarity in spelling. We considered using “groovle” before we came up with “gruvr”. I wonder if the owners sold it to the new developers, or whether they came up with this idea on their own?
I forgot the last time I went to the google homepage to search. Firefox search box is the window to search.
Another ridiculous company featured on TechCrunch.
This is a great idea. They really coined the name of this well too.
awesomestart.com has been doing this for years.
Isnt it possible google to make customization for their search ? I think will be cool
i would use them more often lol 
Unless they have special permission from Google, this is an infringement of the custom search Terms & Conditions, which require that the search box is not the primary subject of any page upon which it appears.
I created a site like this almost 2 years ago. I just dug out and dusted off the code and put it up at Joomly.com. Anyone want to buy it?
Email me kozomo@gmail.com
I may put some more effort into it as I go forward. Not sure. I have way to many other projects at this time.
Michael
Dan M,
I believe the primary subject of the page is the image of their choice not so much the search. Not sure though. I guess it is interpretative.
Michael
Hi there, add us to the list of people who built a site like this before a couple of years back. In our case, Google closed it down for the T&C violations alluded to above. It’s still there at cafedash.com, but conducting a search reveals its disabled status.
Michael said;
“I believe the primary subject of the page is the image of their choice not so much the search. Not sure though. I guess it is interpretative.”
Google AdSense T&C’s say:
“AdSense for Search. If You have elected to receive Search Results, You will display on Your Site(s) a Google search box (a “Search Box”) in accordance with the specifications provided by Google. Each Web page(s) that contains a Search Box must also contain other content related to Your Site.”
I suppose a pretty lady is good enough
Hi Dan M,
I am going to add a few more features to Joomly today. Custom RSS feeds, My Favorite sites, and a couple other things to take the emphasis off of search and make it more personalized. I may also splice the search into my site Chibifriends.com.
Michael
Sites like Groovle.com are a clever way to improve your search experience, but the one that I like above and beyond everything I’ve tried is http://greenbacksearch.com, which purchases carbon offsets on your behalf with its search revenues. And what’s pretty neat is that you can embed a widget on your blog, Facebook account, etc that shows how much you’ve saved. Could saving the environment be easier?
This might give (lots of) monetizing ideas to venturing entrepreneurs ; )
blackle.com do something similar with adsense :
http://googleblog.blogspot.com.....green.html
And this seems “OK” for Google as they notice them, write about them, and don’t close their adsense account.
I think that they only want that you don’t hijack user homepage with a clone of Google.com (without your logo, links,…and nothing specific).
It looks awesome.
Though I’m interested to see what happens.
A friend of mine ran a site with a similar concept called Godark.us
It’s basically a google custom search that looks different, so really the same idea.
He was doing well then google cancel his adsense account.
I wonder what google will think of groovle…
Unbelievable. Now all you need to do is slightly modify google coop and insert the image of an attractive woman to make TechCrunch?
Also FYI your lovely flash banner for peerme does not have an active link. I use firefox and adblock. Murphy’s law - the only ad that has ever been relevant to me is unclickable!
Tried it out… the Google Custom Search Engine doesn’t have that snappy response that regular Google has. Seems to have a lag before loading.
Wow, Groovle must have a lot of bills to pay after they secured the rights to all of those celebrities and every professional sports team in the US!
END SARCASM
GOTO LAWSUIT
For those of you who said you created a similar site that was shuttered by Google, were you also using others’ copyrighted material for your Google search site? If so, I think the illegal material would be Google’s real reason for shutting you down (even though they may have said otherwise). And Google’s hand was likely forced by someone representing the copyright holder getting in touch with Google threatening to sue Google for allowing this.
For ubiquitous sites that “pimp your myspace page,” which include celebrities and various other copyright infinging material, I believe they skirt by because it doesn’t pay to sue them. But with Google margins, release the hounds!
It’s kind of like Perez Hilton. When he was a no-name celebrity blogger stealing everyone’s paparazzo shots for use on his own site, no one cared. Then he garnered a huge audience and advertising revenue and the copyright holders had something to sue for. He was sued and he now includes attribution for the photos on his site. I wouldn’t be surprised if he has to pay to use some or all of them or worked out some deal.
I created KindSearch.com years ago which was based on the exact same concept. All of the Adsense money was going to be donated to charity. Google shut us down within a week or two due to violations of their service agreement. We’d raised roughly $35 at the time.
Nobody at Google would ever respond to us to explain what policy we had violated or why they were canceling our account. I worked hard to find someone who would respond, but they refused to help.
Assuming the policies have remained the same, Groovle will be shut down soon.
the copyright infringing images is what i thought of too initially. Although, there is a clever black hat way around it…. just allow your community to upload photos and create custom pages. (read - sign up bogus accounts and upload images). then create categories of these. simple. now you’re on the same boat as Youtube.
@38, John Rydell: Nice theft of the Yahoo IM smiley!
@39, Vishal: With all of the same liabilities that YouTube has.
You will then have to come up with some system to prevent users from uploading copyrighted material and take down copyrighted material as soon as possible when alerted to it. Of course, you don’t do this until you are being sued. And you aren’t being sued until you have a large audience. YouTube still has quite a few hurdles in front of it.
Thanks Duncan for this interesting news.
I applied the idea to my photo sharing site http://atpic.com
Each of the site users can have one of the photo as background is their google search (one random photo within their account or within a gallery, or one pre-defined photo)
The page http://google.atpic.com will display a random picture among all members pictures
How much money can a site like this expect to make?
So cool! They now have support for full screen versions. In fact you can toggle between Fullscreen, tiled, and framed versions of your custom images.
You can also drag around the Groovle search bar anywhere on the full screen image…
These features aren’t on their already created homepages though… so you need to create your own in order to see it
i like it
i like it but i think this site better makeupmyhomepage.com