Nsyght: another take on social searching
Story byErnst-Jan Pfauth
Ernst-Jan Pfauth is the former Editor in Chief of Internet at NRC Handelsblad, as well as an acclaimed technology author and columnist. He a(show all)Ernst-Jan Pfauth is the former Editor in Chief of Internet at NRC Handelsblad, as well as an acclaimed technology author and columnist. He also served as The Next Web’s blog’s first blogger and Editor in Chief, back in 2008. AtDe Correspondent, Ernst-Jan serves as publisher, fostering the expansion of the platform.
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.
Related Articles
More TNW
About TNW
The holy grail
But the most important question remains, Mr. McCaleb. Why would the public choose your search engine, out of all the other alternatives?
“Well there may be a lot of competition in this space, but I feel pretty strongly no one has approached the problem in the same way we have. The holy grail in search is not having the biggest index, but the one that gets you a relevant result in the shortest possible time. While we are small – a given since we are self-funded – we obviously have a ways to go. But as we gain more users, we will gain more of their bookmarks, and then we will have even more highly relevant sites in which to crawl and index.
Another way to look at it is this. PageRank is a brilliant concept, and still does an incredible job determining relevancy. But fundamentally, even with all the data points probably looks at it still is more concerned about the source and not the content. What we can do is let the user define the sites they feel are relevant, leverage their social network, and over time see their results become highly personalized. So in a way, augmenting the algorithm for their own use and gain.”
What do you use?
The only way to end this article, in my opinion, is to ask you guys whether you really use social search engines? Since you’re probably the most web-savvy crowd out there, you would also be the first ones to adopt a new trend. So tell me, still on Google? Or already switching to the brand new social engines?
