One search engine dies, another takes a step forward.
This is a hard space to find a niche in, but the money at stake if you succeed is staggering.
Blekko, the stealth search engine we’ve been covering since early 2008, has raised a third round of financing – $11.5 million from USVP and CMEA. That brings the total amount of capital raised to $17.5 million, including a $1 million credit line. Their last round was in March 2008.
We took a look at Blekko in late May. The company wants absolutely no press at all while they continue to bake the product, but we think there is something interesting under the hood. And apparently a few investors agree.
It doesnt matter who the founders are or how much money they have.
As Cuil, Searchme and many other remnants have shown. Its about innovation .
Or have something distinctive (e.g. privacy protection) like http://www.yauba.com
Basically, none of these players are seeking to displace Google, they are just seeking to get 1% of the search market which is worth $3 billion in market cap.
There seems a protocol to detect duplicate pages by search engines. Pages like wiki redirects and &ref suffixes, that is same page but different urls. Yahoo and bing yet to implement it! Goog already doing this, and adding pageRank of duplicates for better relevancy, and by not cache’ing duplicate pages it saves both server memory and match processing..
Anybody else too amused by this??
Forget innovation, think marketing. For lots of people and for whatever reasons, Google = Access to Internet. Most people don’t have a clue as to what are good search results and what aren’t. Frankly, I’m not sure I do either.
Please try new search engine http://yebol.com and give your feedback.
how does this works?
So the site isn’t even live?
any hints as to when they plan to launch?
nope.
SearchMe is not dead, it’s actually good step for them. Storing visual search results probably requires more space, and thus costs more – so there is no point to compete where the visual search results have an edge, as Adams put it. The shift to visual media is sensible move.
No one will kill Google, but Google is the category and like any industry we will see more and more niche searching.
i certainly hope so. i love the iphone app.
Michael,
I think it’s noteworthy to cover the fact that during Searchme’s high monthly burn rate, SpaceTime.com through its Visual Search website and Browser has managed to and continues to deliver Visual Search to many.
Eddie Bakhash
SearchMe is in a coma and on Google life support. Legally they are still an active search engine.
“No one will kill Google”
Oh? What if told you that Blekko was going to kill Google.
What was the point of this article?
Three rounds with no launch? That’s newsworthy, especially for a consumer Web company during a bust economy. Someone believes they are building something relevant…
The point? They got $11.5M in funding from two prominent VCs. Why on earth would you not want that mentioned in an online pub like TechCrunch?
Q: “Why on earth would you not want that mentioned in an online pub like TechCrunch?”
A: Because it’s unlikely that they’re creating any kind of game changer.
USVP and CMEA are dinosaurs. i believe CMEA abbreviates “chemical and materials enterprise associates”
this investment indicates little…
Still stealth ?.. Nopsy, their stealth is compromised thats why we are hearing about them.. Anywys, they should be incorporating ways to find stealth pages on internet.. Then they can hit the market. Pages which are really useful not just filled with tags and marketing text.
I curious to see what this is about
What kind of name is Blekko? Was every other possible combination of letters taken?
it was a stealth name only. i don’t know what they are launching as, or even if they’ve made the final decision yet.
MA said it is just a stealth name, and this substantiates that statement. From their blog post, dated 10/23/2008: “We hired a naming firm to come up with a better name than ‘blekko’, they did a great job. Down to two candidates. Testing them.”
http://www.skre...ts_up_rich.html
A “naming firm.” There are firms that do nothing but name things….
Haven’t they learned that in this age of constant innovation, new releases, updates, etc., that they would be better off releasing a beta product, getting PR and feedback on their product, instead of ‘baking’ their product?
I don’t think that’s the best approach for something as complicated as a search engine.
I agree with Mathieu. Since it’s a site used by consumer, they should what else…engage their consumers for feedback and build a community around it. These early adopters will be the best evangelist.
Yah but you are missing the point. If you look at Cuil, searchme and even wolframalpha they all suffered from not living up to the hype and a lot of times the bar is simply not google.. personally I think these companies that want to compete really need to think bigger. It is not enough to do a search engine. For me to even consider changing over I will need a blog interface and a email system also. Google does so much that often it is just more convienent to use there search.
“I don’t think that’s the best approach for something as complicated as a search engine”
Seemed to have worked for Google.
Seemed to have worked for Cuil.
lol
Cuil will rise from the ashes. I don’t know how or why, but when everything our civilization dies out, only two things will remain–a single cockroach…and Cuil.
Disagree. Looks like they’re doing the same thing as Powerset. That worked out well for them.
While I don’t think it is bad to “bake” a product, after a year of development and $17 million dollars, I hope that they don’t release a charcoal briquet.
Time can only tell what the future holds. I am sure with the current climate, new ideas are well sought for. Will the phoenix arise from its ashes? Perhaps, or will its story be like the film Ghost Rider ( Nicholas Cage), a ceaseless crusade to wage war on dark forces, when everything goes dark?
“Blekko” — hah. Makes “Bing” and “Cuil” look like strokes of marketing genius.
are you serious? There website is a joke! FAIL
wow. calling something fail prior to launch or even knowing what it is. strong move, mr. anonymous.
Especially for someone who can’t spell.
The only FAIL here is your “failure” to understand the basics of the English language.
It’s great to see companies actually putting their product first and not worrying about press, hype, etc… we’ve all seen what hyperbole can lead to – “Cuil” anyone?!
I personally think for a search engine to succeed today you’ll have to focus more on the marketing than on the actual product. And the marketing will have to be a bit wild..anarchic, very “internetish” – think memes – for it to succeed.
I think they’re coming out with a ChaCha competitor. Watch them revolutionize search!
only 5k of unique traffic???
hasn’t launched yet.
what happened to release early and often?
I wouldn’t be surprise if they are a failure. They are hiding something as if it is very new and innovative. They are a failure and very childish.
not hiding anything. just haven’t finished building it yet. lol.
If I am a Chef who is waiting for my restaurant to be built, would my restaurant be called a stealth restaurant?
If I am an author who is in the midst of writing a book, would I be called a stealth author?
Obviously, no.
Hence, there is no such thing as a stealth startup.
Buzzword fail.
I don’t know what’s up with you guys today, but y’all need to chill out.
Agreed. You did just send out a bunch of rejections to TechCrunch50; maybe that did it.
ah. yes. that may be part of this.
Lol. Everybody is such a search expert and they love to say fail faster than they even read the 3.5 paragraphs of this story.
I’m all about great marketing but search is extremely complex so it makes sense to have a solid product before you show it to everyone.
I’m sure they are not stupid. I’m sure anybody trying to go after the 1% mkt share is a bit smarter than some of the commenters above lol. But going after 1% in search makes you ambitious or crazy. Either way, doing lots of marketing (beyond the obvious techcrunch tips and blog leaks) is spending money or wasting effort.
This is definitely news and I look forward to some more Blekko. Or whatever they rename themselves as.
To stand a better chance, they should aim for 0.99% of the market.
Chilling complete.
So Mikey lets change the conversation…
Howz your wife search coming up? It has been a while (April 1st) since we sent in the entries…
It must be harder than choosing TC50
Google is the search equivelant of the .com ext – it was the first to achieve market recognition of the leader search engine – as .com has become and will always remain the default ext for type in traffic….”
Bing is doing a nice maarketing campaign, but it will fizzle out eventually.
For any new site to stand a chance at getting a sizeable chunk of search traffic, no matter how good that site maybe, it will have to offer something radically new, seperate and apart from the search, but bundled together on one site, forcing traffic their way..
i just dont see that happening though…..
Right.
stealth is a fancy term for nobody cares about them
I can assure you it isn’t.
I’m SO excited about finally seeing what these guys are up to. I feel like I’ve lived my whole adult life whilst these guys have been sitting in there garage with that pigging puppet the kiddo put together!
the only way you can topple google search is to FIRST make a browser search plugin and THEN after you reach critical mass roll out your own search destination site. That is the quickest and only logical way to grab market share. Release a plugin that adds to the G search experience. Get people hooked with your new spruce ups … then take them to your homepage.
Just focus on searching for porn. Success rate is higher.
Until they launch, why not to use an easy and fun alternative – search without search result ! check it out http://qwiji.com/
I love these cute little charades with making search engines. As we have seen, Bingo or whatever MS search is called now is only gaining popularity because people are suckers for commercials (commercials cost a LOT!).
The real money is making something awesome, then having Google buy you out with their deep pockets. (see billionaires: Google Sketchup, Blogspot, Doubleclick, etc etc etc)
I hope this isn’t taken as spam but all the search engines suck – Yahoo was the only good one in mid 90’s when it was a directory now it’s terrible like the rest – The major players have all the pr locked up and it’s impossible to break in – Try and get a link – Try it – The same people will own 50 sites of the same genre on the same ip and still rank at top – with literaly Zero content
I have a Huge – Really Free nude celebs site http://celebsfamous.com – before you call this spam- Click it- It IS HUGE and It Is Free and It IS the best – I can get a speck of traffic NoWhere