ZDnet has a good article about Big Blue's Web Fountain. Using hubs and authorities (what Teoma uses) IBM plans to create a different type of search product.

The Web Fountain project will be used to track answers to questions such as "what do people think about me?" Its goal is to help people project trends and find answers that would otherwise make no sense to other search engines.

Web Fountain also has an interesting model. Instead of people buying hardware, IBM wants people to lease processor power. Now that is an efficient way to run a business!

A recent article by Mark Evans titled "Keep your Google Mania in check" states that Dipsie will be released later this year with an index of over 10,000,000,000 documents.

"What Dipsie is trying to do is develop search technology that does a better job of retrieving and presenting data. It aims to index many parts of the Web that Google or Inktomi don't. While Dipsie's technology is complex, in simple terms it will use semantic-based analysis to produce searches featuring content and context.

Jason Wiener, Dipsie's founder, is realistic that knocking off Google is a huge challenge. He realizes being a little bit better than Google will not be enough to make Dipsie a relevant rival. Dipsie needs to be several magnitudes better. "If we are 5% better, I should just work at Starbucks and make some lattes," he says."

Later in the article it states that they intend to create a buzz using 100,000 test searchers, and that they intend to hire the same PR firm that NutraSweet used.

The biggest advantage Dipsie has is that there are no expectations or people relying on it right now. They can make major changes and wait to put their index out when the algorithm is really good. In addition nobody is gaming their algorithm the way people are gaming Google.

Google has done some amazing things, and I don't look for them to stop anytime soon. The brand of Google will not be easy to knock off, but if you want to take a chance, Dipsie is hiring!

Going Gone ... Gone Gone Gone? GoHook is a new auction search engine. It archives the auction results from sites such as eBay, Amazon, UBid and a few others for years.

What Can GoHook Be Used For? If you are selling stuff this can give you a good approximation of price. In addition after data adds up it can be used to track price over time for trend analysis. Tracking enough data can also show you which creatives are the best to use and what time of day, week, or month is the best for sales. Future upgrades may even contain moon phase.

Of course the obvious reason to use GoHook is to check past prices to see what you may want to bid on something for sale right now. You may also need to know if that item in the antique shop is worth the $3.74 that is on the sticker.

Before you buy from an online auction I recommend checking a few of the price check search engines. Froogle is my favorite, but some other people like Shopping.com, Yahoo Shopping, MSN Shopping, Bizrate, PriceGrabber, MySimon...and other random ones...I probably left a few good ones out...ooppsss

How Much Does GoHook Cost? Free now. They are still trying to build value before they extract profits...

Want to Learn More? GoHook FAQ's

(another cool find from ResearchBUZZ)

I keep reading these marketing books which say that markets are conversations and over at SearchGuild we recently had two distinctly different types of people come to the forums. Each came to represent their product and they fared way differently. Person 1: Dez from WebSearch.com.au spoke in a human voice about his search engine. He has even lended tips to some moderators on how to improve their sites...we think Dez is the bomb diggity!

Person 2: DirectorySearch from DirectorySearch announced his URL and basically bailed. In the process he alienated many of us and actually hurt his product. He never gave his name and failed to even fully answer the questions about his products.

DirectorySearch does have a good script, but product alone does not make or break you. It's how you use the product and how you communicate with the customer that helps build long term value.

In marketing the power of the weak tie is astronomical. If you ask a large cross section of society "Who found a job through a weak friend?" the percentage will be exceptionally high. Our friends typically share much of our environment and lifestyle. People who are friends of a friend live in a totally different world and know realities which are completely foreign to us.

Friendster is a free dating and social interaction network which opperates using this idea. Reports have stated that Google wanted to buy them last year for $30 million, but they did not sell.

Google organizes the web based on the social structure of the linking of the entire web. Newer technologies are allowing them to better find local clusters, but The Bost Globe reports that today a new competitor will take this field using the direct route.

For Eurekster to be effective features such as categorizing friends and settings such as trust friends of friends a certain number of levels deep will be necissary. Eurekster works by allowing you to cast a silent vote for a site based on the time you visit the site. Read the official Eurkester about us and Eurkester how it works information.

They hope to get you to download their toolbar and to tell friends about Eurkester via email. Two things which I believe to be errors in spreading this message are that the name of the search engine is hard for me to remember, and that they have a somewhat cluttered home page when compared with the current major search engines.