SHOOTOUT: Google SearchWiki vs. Wikia

Google introduced SearchWiki, a search results customization feature, to the public this week. Naturally, there are comparisons being made with Wikia Search, one of the original roll-your-own search machines.

So we ask: Which is best?

Google’s broad implementation of editing options is of course going to grab more eyes, and thus more interest, than Wikia Search. But let’s do a quick shootout among technical competitors, shall we? A little mano-a-mano for fans and opponents alike to consider, eh?

Google vs Wikia: The Visuals

Google SearchWiki - Google has a substantial leg up here. SearchWiki has had a largely seamless introduction, and the edit options are almost too easy to learn.

Wikia Search - It isn’t necessarily unattractive, but it’s considerably more complex. Which makes it a bit slower to operate.

How They Work

Google SearchWiki - Simply put, you have promotion and removal buttons to begin with, as well as a comment option to the right of the URL and ‘Similar Pages’ label.

If you choose to raise a link’s profile, it will be carried to the top of the results page. Removal will drop a link to the bottom of the page. Changes can be reversed, too, so nothing is definite.

Unfortunately, there is no quick option to rearrange a page as you like. Promos jump to the top. That’s the only path to take. Which you can familiarize yourself with, but it can still be tedious, particularly if you’re mapping your ideal Top 10-20 set of results for certain keywords.

Wikia Search - Apart from working with considerably less speed, there’s hardly anything to gripe about insofar as the engine’s toolset.

Hover your cursor over a search result and you’re shown a menu by which to edit, annotate, spotlight, comment, or delete whatever you see. You can star results from with a 1-5 rating, and you can even add a result if it’s missing from view.

User Friendliness

Google SearchWiki - Some might say SearchWiki is way ahead of Wikia in this department, but that’s not necessarily the case. We refer you to our “tedious” remark about having to customize a page’s results within the strict push-to-top and drop-to-bottom framework. It’s acceptable or annoying, depending on your level of patience and love for Mother Google.

Wikia - Give it a minute or two of your time, and you’ll find this one surprises with just how intuitive and powerful it can be - without becoming too detail-heavy. The abundance of tags at the top of the roster is welcome, and the Facebook-esque pop-up menu along the bottom of the window is nice to have. On-the-fly language specification is also something to appreciate.

And The Winner Is…

…it depends! It’s thoroughly difficult to be objective about these things, so we’ll leave it up to you to determine which engine is best. Google will command the discussions simply for its size and influence, so there’s no use thinking Wikia Search has a shot in a wide open one-on-one.

Yet Wikia is without doubt the more capable of the two when it comes to search results customization and annotation. There are just more stuff that a real power user would need. And let’s face it, the only search engine users that will bother combing results for their personal best-of list(s) are the power users among us. The ones that aren’t happy with how algorithms alone make keywords sing.

If you want to lend an engine a helping hand without care about brand loyalty and page count volume, Wikia Search is the place to go.

source: mashable.com

Lively, and Three Other Google Flops

Google was once invincible and unable to make a mistake. Well, although its share price is not what it used to be, one can argue they’re still invincible in most areas they’ve dabbled in, but the mistakes and flops are now piling up.

Google Lively, a virtual world in which users can create their own environment and avatar and communicate with each other, is about to be shut down. True, this was one of Google’s 20% projects, meaning that it was created by one of Google’s engineers in their “spare” time, but still, time and money were invested in it and it flopped badly, with hardly anyone ever using it. Competing with Second Life is obviously not something that can be done casually.

The most clear example of a Google failure, however, is Google Answers. A high profile project and a direct competitor to Yahoo Answers - which, by the way, is still operational - Google Answers was shut down back in 2006. Its model of experts answering questions (instead of just having an open model with everyone answering, like on Yahoo Answers) didn’t hold up too well, and although the service is still a valuable resource, it wasn’t meant to be.

Jaiku has not officially flopped yet. But, the fact remains that after acquiring the service back in 2007 Google has done absolutely nothing with it, while Twitter - Jaiku’s direct competitor - has grown immensely. Hell, even other competitors in the space, such as Pownce, have experienced better growth than Jaiku, which can be seen from the Compete traffic comparison below.

No innovation, no new features; in fact, after the service was acquired by Google, its official blog has had only two updates: one to say that the service is back up, and another to warn about maintenance downtime. Perhaps Google has something huge in stock for Jaiku, but from what can be seen on the surface, it’s going nowhere.

Directly related to the Jaiku-Twitter story is Dodgeball, another short messaging service that Google had acquired in 2005. Unlike other Google flops, this one wasn’t entirely wrapped in nice, apologetic words. Dennis Crowley, the founder of Dodgeball, was frustrated with his experience working with Google, and he claimed that Google simply didn’t think Dodgeball was worth investing any resources in. It’s no secret that every startup’s wet dream is getting acquired by Google, and the Dodgeball incident has so far been the only stain on Google’s near perfect resume.

Is there a lesson that can be learned from these mistakes? Perhaps it’s still too early to tell, but if you add Orkut - Google’s social network which is arguably doing well, but also hasn’t done anything revolutionary lately - to the mix, it becomes fairly obvious that Google is not good at building communities. One more reason to bet on Facebook one day being bigger than Google, if you’re the betting type.

Source: mashable.com

If Google Buys Digg, What Happens Next?

My prediction: nothing. Not a damn thing. If Google acquires Digg, which many sites are reporting as a done deal, it’ll be a little something I call a Vanity buy. Which would mean that Google doesn’t really need Digg ; it wants it. And if Google is smart, it’ll just leave Digg as it is.

The thing is, Digg and other social media sites are very much dependant on having an active, vibrant community. I might be proven wrong, but history has shown that these types of sites never get enormous; and their users are not too keen on clicking ads. In short, they’re not the goldmine everyone thought they would be (hence the thousands of Digg clones out there).

So - if the rumors are true - why is Google buying it? Because it’s cool. It has formidable traffic, yes, but the main reason why anyone would want to own Digg is influence. Let’s face it, it’s a very influential site: some are trying to game it, some are trying to win it (it can be a game, you know), some are trying to understand it and profit from it. But the fact that it’s such an enigma, with its users constantly redefining what works and what doesn’t, is one of the reasons it’s so popular.

The other reason why Google would want to buy Digg is the simplest of all: because they can. Digg is the first and best site in an entirely new niche, and if the price is not outrageous, Google can afford it, so why not own it? If nothing else, it’ll give them a great opportunity to find out about the inner workings of this specific and complex social media ecosystem.

Therefore, I think that it would be dumb for Google to try to do anything to Digg, especially immediately after the acquisition. It could cause a backlash from the community. If they acquire it, they can move some ads around and try to leverage the influence in some ways, but the best thing they can do is enjoy it and go with the flow.

by Stan Schroeder