The search engine field sure is getting a whole lot busier the last few months and it looks likewill be a busy year as we attempt to sort through the vast mountains of data that we continue to create and modify.
One of the things that has happened in the last few weeks is a new wave of search engines is beginning to emerge. Google controls over 57% of American online search and close to 66% of world wide searches in a market that really doesn’t have any other major player. Yahoo has a dwindling share and there is even rumors that they will outsource search to Google as they cut jobs. AOL already uses Google for search results. MSN/Live and Ask are the only two other large players out there. Here’s some of the newest entrants and soon to come:
- ChaCha is a search engine that is powered by humans who are all supposedly experts in certain areas and answer your questions. ChaCha’s claims of strengths are it’s abilty to answer questions instead of just doing keyword searches. Because you ask a literal question and a human responds you can ask very complicated questions. Also it promises a mobile ability that will allow you to get answers texted to your mobile phone. If you want here is a video promo.
- Mahalo is another new search engine that is completely powered and sorted by humans. Mahalo’s biggest claim is that it provides uncluttered results low on spam.
- Earthfrisk.org is another entrant that is run by a community that vote and comment on results to get better results. Earthfrisk says that they take the best of the other search engines and social bookmarking sites, like Digg and StumbleUpon, and weed out the spam. Essentially it’s a on some levels.
- Wikia is the most hyped new entry. It launched a few weeks ago and is by far the most famous of the new search engines. Wikia is the latest project of Jimmy Wales, the creator of Wikipedia. Wikia is an open source search engine and relies on the trust of a growing user community and the feedback that they provide.
- Even Rich Skrenta, co-founder of the Open Directory Project and Topix is attempting to join the mix by creating his own search engineBlekko. Little is known at this point, but I’m sure we will hear more in the coming months.
For Google to continue to dominate it’s going to have to continue to change and adapt especially against the onslaught of user created data in Social Networks and bookmarking sites. This new form of constantly changing and adapting data will continue to pose a challenge until it is figured out how to comfortably index and update it all. I see meta data becoming an invaluable way to keep up with all this data and the company that can do it the best promises to be greatly rewarded.
It looks like we are at the beginning of an extremely interesting period in the history of search as many companies attempt to tackle this giant beast of an issue.
I’ll close with this powerful video created by Director of Web MarketingWesch at Kansas State that attempts to put into context how vast and varied the collection of internet data is and the need to be able to sort and search it. It’s actually sort of a cult classic in some higher education circles.
I worked for ChaCha on the side through college, and made pretty decent money. Of course, I quit before hitting $600 so I wouldn’t have to pay taxes.
Interesting concept, don’t know if it will ever catch on fully though. Google is a behemoth.
Google looks like it will remain on top for some time. As the founder of EarthFrisk.org and .com, I can say that any challenge for Google will be long and hard. EarthFrisk.org lets users vote on the best results of the major search engines and we have our own ranking system and toolbars as well. Only time will tell how popular any of these Google challengers will become.
And you, EarthFrisk, just earned major points in my book for keeping track of social media and being a part of the conversation. I am bookmarking you now.
Hey Brad how much work did you have to put in for the $600… just curious if it’s a realistic way to make a little money on the side?
I think it’s probably less lucrative now because I’m sure there are more people doing it (more people = less questions = less money). There are definitely better ways to get some side cash going right now. I just did FusionCash and made $50 in a couple hours. Check it out here, and make sure you click my referral link
https://blog.bradjward.com/?p=244
Great post! These various new search engines may indeed begin to take a small amount of traffic away from Google, but I think some traffic will be taken away from the other “big” search engine sites as well, so Google will still be the dominant search engine, carrying the most search traffic.
Google’s not going anywhere.
Keep an eye on MSN…everything Gates touches turns to gold, and they are slowly yet steadily stealing more and more of Google’s traffic and daily visitors.
Great post!
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So how much money have you made from this since you started?