Will a wiki-based search engine overcome Google?
27Dec2006
Wikipedia’s founder, Jimmy Wales, is planning to start a wiki-based search engine that will probably be launched in early 2007 with Amazon as partner.
The main idea behind this project is to build a human-based search engine over computer-based algorithms like the ones that Google and Yahoo! work with. According to Mr. Wales this kind of systems is no match for the editorial judgment of humans. So this new concept of search engine will rely on human intelligence to do what algorithms cannot.
The search engine has widely and wrongly been reported as being called “Wikiasari” which, as Wales has stated, that name refers to a former similar project, Wikia search engine, not affiliated with Amazon, A9, or Wikipedia.
Like its potential competitors, the revenue model for this new search engine will be advertising, though Mr. Wales himself thinks that catching up with Google, Yahoo!, MSN or even smaller players like Ask.com will be a difficult challenge. What comes next? Only time will tell.