Back in June I wrote that I had abandoned Google for Zakta. With the announcement of Facebook and Bing‘s new partnership I figured I out to recap my enthrallment with Zakta.

Most people have never heard of Zakta – but for the last [...]]]>

Back in June I wrote that I had abandoned Google for Zakta. With the announcement of Facebook and Bing‘s new partnership I figured I out to recap my enthrallment with Zakta.

Most people have never heard of Zakta – but for the last several months they have been my engine of choice. What makes Zakta so special that it could drag me away from Google? Social Search. I mean real social search, not this weak stuff Facebook/Bing are offering.

Zakta offers a number of really awesome features but the one I really care about is the ability to edit my results. See, I spend all day every day working on computers – its my job. I am constantly searching for extremely arcane information. On more than one occasion I’ve driven even Google’s huge indexes to turn up empty. Unfortunately, its not all revolving around the same topic – so the arcane information I may need today won’t be utilized again for another five months or a year. This is where Zakta comes in handy. I can do a search for “rsFieldReference report item expressions can only refer to fields within the current dataset” or “You can only import binary registry files from within the registry editor” – delete the results that aren’t relevant, thumbs up and comment on the results that provide the answer – and then months later perform the same or a similar query and immediately know which links are going to be most helpful!

Zakta has something big in the wings – according to the site. I’m hoping they do, b/c I think it is only a matter of time before one of the “big guys” comes out with a social search engine – and then, if Zakta hasn’t already established itself well in the marketplace – well, it will be all over.

I have a bunch of ideas for how Zakta could “break-out” but my biggest / core idea centers on increasing the role trusted editors play in search results rankings for everyone – and in order to get good trusted editors give us some stock. I’d love to be an editor…and help out in other ways…

Okay, that’s the end of my Zakta speel for now, expect to see more once Zakta releases there upcoming “big upgrade”.

Related articles

• Social Search: Links are Dead, Social is the New Pagerank (webpronews.com)
• Is Google falling behind in search as it gets ambushed by Facebook and Microsoft? (jaredhendler.posterous.com)
• Social Search Propels Bing, Will Hurt Google (charleneli.com)
• Facebook And Bing Partner Up To Tag Team Google With Social Search (simplyzesty.com)

A Better Search Engine.

X= (C*15) + (E*40) + ((A1*40) + (A2*30) + (A3*20) + (A4*10) + (A5*5)) + (M*20)

X = The ranking value for any given entry for a given search query.

C = The [...]]]>

A Better Search Engine.

X= (C*15) + (E*40) + ((A1*40) + (A2*30) + (A3*20) + (A4*10) + (A5*5)) + (M*20)

X = The ranking value for any given entry for a given search query.

C = The natural ranking given by a natural search engine analysis (such as provided via Google, Yahoo, Bing).

E = The ranking value given by individuals noted as experts in the field. For example – an individual “recognized” as an expert in American Civil War History voting on SiteA as of high importance to queries on “Vicksburg battle” would cause SiteA to receive a ranking value boost of E*40, where E is the ranking given by the expert, ranking inverted so that 1 = 1 (first result) and 10000 = .00001 (ten thousandth result).

A(1,2,3,4,5) = Aggregate of users rankings. These are aggregated based on “trust.” A user receives trust as they demonstrate reliability over time. This would be determined by a sub-algorithm that considered factors such as (a) how often user agreed with experts, (b) how often user agreed with crawler, (c) how often user agreed with other high-level users, etc.

M = Whether the user has verified their identity and linked a valid credit/banking account to their account. Fines would be imposed on individuals abusing the system using this linked information. Linking to valid monetary funds would not be required but would be an optional means of increasing trust.

An Introduction.

Since at least 2003 I have believed there was a better way to do search – and that way is socially. I nearly launched a business at that juncture to create such a search engine. I’ve waited eagerly over the years for someone to implement what seems so common sense to me – only to repeatedly be disappointed.

Google has now killed off SearchWiki. While far from what I envision – it was still closer and a move in the right direction for the company that has always insisted that machines can do it better. I had hoped it was the beginning of a change for Google – but the reversion to stars is devastating. So, I wanted to whine….and here it is.

I’m not going to spend all night on it at this juncture…but I may add to this article on occasion. That’s all.

What Would It Take?

Some would suggest that this project would be nigh impossible to complete – certainly impossible against a behemoth like Google. I don’t think so.

• There is a free/open source robust, web search engine currently available called Nutch. It’s actually been around for years (I was looking at it back around 2003 as well).
• There is also the option of using one of the many discarded web search engines – or getting a larger partner on-board like Yahoo! or Microsoft. Wink had something going for a while, Eurekster also liked like it had potential.
• Matt Wells has demonstrated what can be done on a low budget with web search for ten years now with Gigablast. Think <$10,000 to start for hardware.
• Hiring “experts” isn’t that hard. For initial seeding one could use educated non-experts (e.g. college students) who are willing to work for a low hourly rate ($10/hr.) but can make intelligent choices between web results.
• Wikipedia has demonstrated that it is possible to create an open eco-system which remains fairly spam free.

Incentives.

For both businesses and individuals there would be an incentive to play fair, to contribute content, etc.:

• Businesses would receive “cred” for good submissions/votes which they could then use to promote their own valid content (they’d lose cred quickly if they abused their cred).
• Individuals could do the same for their own websites.
• We also find the pride of ownership and accomplishment would play a significant role as seen in Wikipedia, YouTube, and DMoZ.
• It’d make sense to me to implement revenue sharing (at the “higher” levels of user trust).*

*Consider, we have say 500 individuals with levels A1, A2, or A3 trust who have voted on at least one result on a query result. This query result over a months time generates $1,000 in revenue. 25% is set aside for user compensation. We’d do something like this:

For Each userx

myportion = myrelevantresults + (mytrustlevel * mytrustpoints)

Next

We’d then divide the 25% ($250) by the sum of all userx’s myportion (sumx). Then give each user sumx*myportion (ex. $250 / 3000 = $0.083 * 60 = $5). Not a lot of cash – but that is a rough guestimate on a single search query!

Why Don’t You Do It?

I’m sure some will wonder why I didn’t do it in the past and why I haven’t done it now. Ahh – that is the question. There are numerous contributing factors both past and present but the essence comes down to, I like ideas more than implementation (who doesn’t?)…and more importantly, I find myself more the aggregator of knowledge than the creator of methods. In other words, to some small extent, I’m a walking search engine – and I would love to input my knowledge into an engine like this…but I am not a skilled developer. I mean – I program, but I’m no Scott Guthrie (or…more in my realm, Corey Palmer, Ash Khan, or Kevin Clough).

Feedback Requested.

I’m open to feedback from anywhere…so speak up. A few individuals who come to mind are Steve Marder, Grant Ryan, and Jason Calacanis.