Comments on: Wikia Search Is A Complete Letdown.

By: mathewingram.com/work | Wikia Search: Edit anything and everything

mathewingram.com/work | Wikia Search: Edit anything and everything — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 04:03:13 +0000

[…] Wikia Search was first released, it was dismissed by Mike Arrington at TechCrunch as one of the most disappointing products he had ever reviewed — primarily because it just added social features such as user […]

By: January 8, 2008 | TechTV Update

January 8, 2008 | TechTV Update — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 23:01:13 +0000

[…] says tech news giant CNET is a target for a corporate takeover. Wikia search isn’t getting rave reviews from anyone. Search Engine Journal tells us that most of the user contribution tools aren’t […]

By: Wikia Search « SocialWeb

Wikia Search « SocialWeb — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 08:54:50 +0000

[…] techcrunch […]

By: News » Wikia Search Launch Not Really a Launch

News » Wikia Search Launch Not Really a Launch — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 01:35:44 +0000

[…] much hype Wikia Search just launched with a dummy index. No surprise the launch was received badly. Worse yet, none of the alleged human relevancy tools are available. Wasted opportunity. Google has […]

By: Wikimedia’s 2007 Financials Posted

Wikimedia’s 2007 Financials Posted — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 07:19:30 +0000

[…] from $140k to $264k. Given that this period included time when Jimmy Wales was pitching Wikia Search around the world, some conspiracy theorists are speculating that travel expenses related to the […]

By: Digitalismo » Wikia Search = social network + wiki + motore di ricerca

Digitalismo » Wikia Search = social network + wiki + motore di ricerca — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 13:45:46 +0000

[…] engine a poche ore dal lancio, sta già raccogliendo molte critiche tra chi bolla il progetto come qualcosa di già visto e chi critica soprattutto la scarsa affidabilità dei risultati del […]

By: Wikia, futuro ‘asesino de Google’, en versión bebé — Blog de Videastudio

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 07:20:26 +0000

[…] de una versión alfa, pero nunca algo tan pero tan…¿rudimentario? Los comentarios deportivos no se hicieron esperar: “Es una de las peores decepciones que he tenido la desgracia de comentar. Absolutamente […]

By: fadilnet » Blog Archive » Wikia Search & PCLinuxOS 2008 MiniMe

fadilnet » Blog Archive » Wikia Search & PCLinuxOS 2008 MiniMe — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 02:59:26 +0000

[…] you rate Wikia Seach as a “service/site that sucks,” bear in mind the words of Jimmy Wales @ Tech Cruch, and the fact that it is still in early stages of […]

By: 'son

'son — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 00:28:00 +0000

I can’t take sides here. Negative reviews like Michael’s can actually be good for a project like Wikia Search. If Michael’s rant stirs up enough ire among those who love grass-roots based technology projects, then perhaps these people will be more likely to contribute to Wikia Search and turn it from a dismal alpha to a rocking beta.

I wonder how quickly such a transition can occur. When Wikipedia was launched, it already had a base of content (from the Nupedia project). I’m not sure if Wikia Search has an analogous seed. Will lack of a nucleus delay (or even doom) Wikia Search?

I definitely want to contribute to Wikia Search, but I’d like to get something in return. When I first started contributing to Wikipedia, I did so because the content that already existed there was quite useful to me. I hope that the next big iteration of Wikia Search comes with a bolus of contributions.

By: Aamer

Aamer — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 05:10:02 +0000

Hey Michael,

We met Jimmy the other day. it was fun talking to him because he gave a thorough insight on
WIKIA SOCIAL SEARCH vs. GOOGLE SEARCH.
You can watch the video here:

http://www.watshow.com/2008/01.....pisode-12/

The interview has been taken in Mumbai, India.

By: Liz

Liz — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 05:12:17 +0000

After just reading about the wikia search in a magazine, I did a search on Google and came across this site. I’m disappointed in all the negative comments about it. But like people here have been saying, it’s still new and to early to say what the end result may be.

By: » nowo?ci na nowy rok72588.pl

» nowo?ci na nowy rok72588.pl — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:58:55 +0000

[…] si? po nich, po kolei (i bardzo pobie?nie). wikia uruchomi?a wikia search w wersji alpha, co nie wszystkim si? spodoba?o . arrington pisze, ?e to jedno z wi?kszych rozczarowa? w jego recenzenckiej karierze, jimbo wales […]

By: eloy

eloy — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 22:06:19 +0000

http://re.search.wikia.com/search#скачать — ????

By: Amit Kumar Saha

Amit Kumar Saha — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 06:01:54 +0000

How can you decide on a product which is in alpha stage and for less than a month?

By: nykanen.net » Wikia Search

nykanen.net » Wikia Search — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 09:00:39 +0000

[…] Lue juttu. […]

By: askwiki user

askwiki user — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 17:14:44 +0000

Speaking of a better search, have any of you tried using AskWiki? http://www.askwiki.com. It is a semantic search engine searching only the wikipedia database, very cool and works much better than powerset.
Unlike Powerset they actually let you form your own querries.

By: Sumeet Anand

Sumeet Anand — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 16:29:18 +0000

Hi Jimmy,
this is is specially for you.
Being a competitor (founder, CEO of Kreeo.com) i reviewed the site and thats not what I or the world expected as an alpha from jimbo…and especially after all the hype created….
very rightly said…that everything new takes time…i am sure wikia will do good…
we at kreeo, have a slightly different approach to a open web and organizing global information…
we are running our alpha in a closed group….and might remain like that till all alpha users are sure that its in a shape to be presented to the rest of web users
- the need is to “Manage Knowledge” for people
- what you are doing in millions of dollars we are doing in just a few million Rupees and 5 guys
- we are a platform of the people, by the people, for the people
- an alpha is a test version and i believe must not be open to all, i think you did it in desperation and not by strategy
I hope you like what we will unleash soon.

Hope to meet you someday
sumeet@i-nable.com

By: Ben Cooper’s Weblog » Blog Archive » A Chat with Ben and Pete - Episode 12

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 08:47:38 +0000

[…] calls is a complete letdown: […]

By: Le Blogueur » Blog Archive » Wikipedia + Facebook + Google = Wikia ?

Le Blogueur » Blog Archive » Wikipedia + Facebook + Google = Wikia ? — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 13:27:20 +0000

[…] Wikia Search Is A Complete Letdown […]

By: Clint Lenard

Clint Lenard — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 00:18:27 +0000

I wonder how bad Wikipedia sucked, too? Was it a major disappointment for all of the nay-sayers out there?

Give it time… I, for one, like what I’m seeing. I think it has some MAJOR potential for the future.

A year or two from now - people will see this thing really kicking ass.

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 21:49:12 +0000

I was really disappointed also. I know it is new, but it was hyped so much as a potential Google competitor that I really feel let down. I wish it all the best as I would like some real competition in the search space, but we are not there yet.

By: Mike Curtis

Mike Curtis — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 17:56:56 +0000

Another way to build up quality search results is to make search engine groups of about 1000 people per group. Each group is tasked to explore different themes and to build their own subjective top search results.
Eventually, the groups are pooled and, more importantly, there is a history of which users were spamming in a true sense, and which ones have respect as legitimate contributors whose contributions were popularly received.
There would then be a head-to-head evaluation of other groups’ search results (like marking your neighbour’s homework at school).
I emphasise that the strength of this system and any open source project is to be able to identify time-wasters, mediocre talent and useful contributors, as democratically perceived in a manageable community.
Wikia Search will likely receive popular ‘diggs’ from people who ’stumble upon’ Google matcheswithin the first 10 to 20 Google search engine matches; but a truly useful opensource engine would have a way to popularly recognise the great sites which are always stuck at position 100.
There needs to be a peer review process to allow them to bubble up to the surface despite the popular mediocre sites which are easier to stumble upon.

By: Jon Awbrey

Jon Awbrey — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 17:30:44 +0000

Discussion at The Wikipedia Review

By: FuzzFind Administrator

FuzzFind Administrator — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 16:03:25 +0000

Hi Michael,

Looks like the Wikia approach involves building a whole new community in order to build up the relevance of search results. Instead of starting on a clean slate, how about leveraging on the current leading social bookmarking communities (e.g. del.icio.us) to enhance the combined metasearch results from the major search engines (Google, Yahoo! Search, Windows Live Search)?

We’ve just launched a web search service called
FuzzFind.com (http://www.fuzzfind.com) that does this. Results are grouped together and sorted according to the search engine rankings plus the popularity of the sites according to the social bookmarking community.

There’s also a feature to allows you to tune and personalize the search results on-the-fly by simply adjusting the weight for each search source through the use of sliders.

Hope that you have some time to check it out, any feedback is welcome so that the service can be improved. Thanks!

By: Gregory Kohs

Gregory Kohs — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 15:16:01 +0000

Could someone remind me how they’ll solve the long-term flaw with this site — what is the MOTIVATION for unpaid volunteers to help improve a for-profit search engine, from which they’ll see no profit-sharing?

Answer: only those with a vested conflict of interest will be interested in dutifully creating and maintaining the types of search results that will personally profit them.

Therefore, the site eventually degrades into a complete spam-fest. If that’s more useful than Google, have at it.

I predict traffic patterns lower than Webcrawler.com by the end of 2008.