Yahoo’s new “Social Search Engine”
No, Yahoo isn’t trying to compete with linkedin or friendster (at least not yet). On July 1’st, Yahoo announced the beta release of its new “Social Search Engine.”
The problem it addresses
Twenty years ago, if you wanted to find information on any specific topic, you would probably borrow a friend’s encyclopedia or call a friend hoping that they knew the answer. If you didn’t have a friend who knew, you probably would never find the information you were looking for (at least not in a timely matter).
The internet has changed all the rules. Now, when we want information on any topic, no matter how obscure, we simply search the web and are inundated with information on the desired topic. So now we have a problem of having too much information. The example that is given on Yahoo’s official blog is a guy who was looking for information on Plasma televisions and couldn’t find any relevant or unbiased information. He ended up asking his friends for advice on sites dealing with Plasma TV’s.
Yahoo’s solution
Yahoo’s solution to this problem is creating communities around search technology that enables you to search sites recommended by your friends. Their theory is that your friends can determine more relevant search results than some “one-size-fits-all” algorithm.
Will it work?
I think it is a brilliant idea, but to be honest, I wish that Google had done it first. First of all, I don’t like using Yahoo as much as I like Google. Now don’t get me wrong, I like my friends, but not enough to change which search engines I use. The model reminds me of offers from cell phone companies where you can call anybody on your plan without using any minutes. The companies are trying to incubate viral marketing campaigns by offering a clear incentive. In this case, however, I can’t see myself changing search engines just because a few of my friends have.
Another potential weakness in this model rests on their premise that my friends can determine relevancy better than an automated algorithm. For some of my friends this may be the case, but I can’t help but think that if I were searching sites recommended by my friends I would be left with a bunch of links to Homestarrunner and various animal shelters (compliments of my wife).
If anybody tries this new service, please let me know what you think.
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Actually, Yahoo did launch something to compete with linkedin, friendster, orkut, etc: Yahoo 360 (360.yahoo.com). I sent you an invitation, if you care. I have a hard time spending more than about 3 minutes in a month at those kind of sites.
Comment by zach — July 7, 2005 @ 12:28 am