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Blekko Review

techcrunch.com

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Re: Blekko Review

#12

Post by ggrot »

SandB0x wrote: post #5

The Slashtags concept looks awesome , and as buzzwordy as it sounds, adding a social aspect to search by allowing Slashtag sharing could really take off. For example, a lecturer could put make a /thiscourseonly Slashtag, searching only hand picked sources. What would be especially great is a smart form of autocomplete. Eg once you typed /date you would get dd/mm/yy or dd monthname year or similar ghosting in front of…

In a sense, Google already has something like this, the Custom Search Engine: http://www.google.com/cse/ - the interface is a little different though, you create a "search engine" which has something like the slashtags built in, rather than specifying a slashtag as part of the query. Has it's pros and cons.

Re: Blekko Review

#13

Post by evgen »

qeorge wrote: post #10

This is wonderful news. In addition to the slashtags, I'm excited about all the ranking data they're showing off. Right now your only source of ranking data straight from a search engine is Yahoo's Site Explorer, and even that data is quite limited and its future availability uncertain. I've never seen duplicate content exposed so openly. And as ora600 said, that level of transparency is something Google exceedingly…

The problem with making ranking data a "feature" is that the only ones who care about this information only care about what the ranking data is on Google. What the rank is for your site on Blekko is of no value whatsoever.

Re: Blekko Review

#14

Post by evgen »

SandB0x wrote: post #5

The Slashtags concept looks awesome , and as buzzwordy as it sounds, adding a social aspect to search by allowing Slashtag sharing could really take off. For example, a lecturer could put make a /thiscourseonly Slashtag, searching only hand picked sources. What would be especially great is a smart form of autocomplete. Eg once you typed /date you would get dd/mm/yy or dd monthname year or similar ghosting in front of…

As they VC query used to go: "is this a feature or a company?" So far Blekko looks like a feature, but I will reserve judgement until I can actually play with it a bit. I really hope that this slashtags bit is not the only interesting thing they have to show after several years of work. OTOH, this does fit what seems to be a pattern for Rich Skrenta and his team: find an already occupied niche and crank out something that has 60-70% of the polish of the leader with a few new features and then flip the whole thing to someone who is desperate to get in or stay in the game.

Re: Blekko Review

#15

Post by yurylifshits »

amichail wrote: post #4

Google could combine its search engine with its app engine to allow third party developers to implement custom searches. Third party developers could even get paid via ads that appear whenever their algorithms are used in the search results.

Actually, you just have described Yahoo BOSS ("Build your own search engine") program :)

Re: Blekko Review

#17

Post by agscala »

mey wrote: post #7

DuckDuckGo provides some of this now as I understand it. http://duckduckgo.com/bang.html and http://duckduckgo.com/goodies.html

Kindof, I think that DDG's bang searches take you to the respective website's search API. This one seems like it shows results in blekko's website simply filtered any way you create.

Re: Blekko Review

#18

Post by jsrfded »

speek wrote: post #16

Anybody here from Blekko? I'd love a special HN invite :-)

Yes, being an HN reader is definitely a plus. :-)

The best way to get an invite is hit us on twitter or facebook (see links from blekko.com). Then we can DM you an invite when we have them ready.

Re: Blekko Review

#19

Post by prakash »

moultano wrote: post #9

I'm really excited about having a new search engine to try. More competition isn't just good for consumers, it's also good for the field of IR. I work in search quality at Google, and it's really exciting for me to see a result that another search engine returns that I don't understand. It inspires me to think of all the ways they might have returned it, and leads to a lot of neat ideas. For the same reason, I enjoy…

I'm really excited about having a new search engine to try.

Give DuckDuckGo a try for a couple of weeks, you probably won't go back to whichever search engine you are using currently :-)

Re: Blekko Review

#20

Post by retube »

jsrfded wrote: post #18
speek wrote: post #16

Anybody here from Blekko? I'd love a special HN invite :-)

Yes, being an HN reader is definitely a plus. :-) The best way to get an invite is hit us on twitter or facebook (see links from blekko.com). Then we can DM you an invite when we have them ready.

Oh man why does everything have to be via facebook, twitter et al? I only do email...
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