Jimmy Wales To Compete With Google

Wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales aims at building an search engine in partnership with Amazon and plans to compete with Yahoo and Google.

The search is said to be using a user-based technology like Wikipedia and involves human input for quality improvement. The project has been codenamed “Wikiasari“. Its a combination of Wiki (A Hawaiian word for quick) and Asari (A Japanese word for rummaging search). The project is said to come out of the labs of Wikia, the for profit company founded by Mr.Wales

Read More: TimesOnline [via Freakitude]

Update: Jimmy Wales has clarified that Amazon has nothing do with this new venture. Thanks Paul

Update II: TechCrunch has posted an exclusive screenshot of Wikia’s upcoming Search Engine:

[View Full Size Screenshot]

According to TechCrunch, Wikiasari’s primary goal is to deliver quality, depth is their secondary goal. Search results include a tag based navigation. The first three results will be Wikipedia content and remain results will be determined by Wikipedia’s outbound links. So if a site has more links from Wikipedia then the site will climb up in the SERP page.

I’m not convinced with this system, since the top three results will be from Wikipedia, it will drive lots of traffic to it. But a Wikipedia based ranking is simply unimaginable. If this really picks up, spammers will start targeting Wikipedia for link and it will surely pollute Wikipedia.

This post was published by on December 23, 2006

About the Author: Thilak Rao works as a Social Media Expert. He is one of the first professional bloggers from India, and he loves to write, travel and click photos. Follow him on Twitter @thilak

  • http://www.techaddi.com Paul Jacob

    Yea I have already posted on this at my blog but im not sure if this idea would really work.

  • http://technospot.net/blogs/index.php/2006/12/19/p Ashish Mohta

    No doubt why google has started buying other now.Its too much of competition now.Guruji already challeneged and now this.Guess google will be buying a lot of things next year

  • http://www.techaddi.com Paul Jacob

    Thilak,

    Jimmy has just gave me a feedback about this news and he states that its totally out of context.

    Check it out:http://www.techaddi.com/index.php/archive/can-a-wiki-style-search-engine-compete-against-google/

  • http://www.vincentchow.net Vincent

    Poor Live/MSN, isn’t even mention as a competitor =p

  • http://technospot.net/blogs/index.php/2006/12/19/p Ashish Mohta

    Hi Thilak,
    I am inviting you for a game on the years ending.
    You are tagged
    http://www.technospot.net/blogs/index.php/2006/12/23/five-things-about-this-not-know-blogger/

  • http://sankaranand.com/blog Sankar Anand

    the screen shot looks pretty good but the ads in the page looks ugly.. bloated…..

  • http://go64now.com Mr.Cool

    Story needs to be updated…

    Jimbo commented on my blog and he says Techcrunch’s story is wrong !
    http://www.technobeta.com/posts/wikiasari-the-search-engine-from-wikipedia/

  • http://tech-buzz.net Thilak

    Good to see lots of interaction going on at this post, but I wonder why TechCrunch posted a fake screenshot ?

    Doesn’t it hurt their ethics ?

  • http://go64now.com Mr.Cool

    Question would be – What made Techcrunch to take such a big risk ?

    I have to say that that was daring ! It could have killed any small blog !

  • http://technospot.net/blogs/index.php/2006/12/19/p Ashish Mohta

    I didnt get it, why not a common indexing.I mean googles indexing and now wikpedia …..dont we need some standard? At the end it iwll be like 3 search engine providing ranks to each site whom would u go for.Obviously which dominates but that isnt right.

    Like they all agreed on the common sitemap I am thinking if they can have a common thing for page ranking and indexing.Difficult though but an idea for sure..

    And wikpedia results 3 top….i dont like that

  • http://www.anirudhsanjeev.org Anirudh

    Well, this will be okay to replace wikipedia’s current search, but it won’t affect google. Say I’m searching for information on the grand canyon, I’ll get relevant details, but If I’m looking for a technical question on linux, this will not yield the proper results. Google must partner with wikipedia and offer one result at the top if a corresponding wikipedia article is available.

  • http://www.anirudhsanjeev.org Anirudh

    ps. tech crunch watermark on image

  • http://tech-buzz.net Thilak

    Anirudh: I disagree with you on this regard. The new Search Engine will comeout of Wikia Labs, it has nothing to do with Wikipedia. Its a standalone Search Engine.

  • http://www.anirudhsanjeev.org Anirudh

    I was talking about this:

    The first three results will be Wikipedia content and remain results will be determined by Wikipedia’s outbound links. So if a site has more links from Wikipedia then the site will climb up in the SERP page.

    and you mean “remaining links” which mean the other search results. This block of text is rather unclear.

  • http://tech-buzz.net Thilak

    Anirudh: Yeah, that’s what I meant to say