Idealab's New Search Company

Three next things in search:
  1. User control (rearrange results, etc.)
  2. User feedback
  3. Transparency
Combined: Snap.com
  • Let's you sort by varios factors: Popularity, Satisfaction, Web Popularity, Web Satisfaction, Domain (.com, etc.).
  • Has structured data for some searches -- e.g., camera
  • (He's not demoing on the live site -- it's slow at the moment.)
  • Purchased actual user data, using that to rank and give results
  • Selling ads/listings on various units: clicks, conversions, etc. And then revealing the conversion rate to users.
  • Revealing all stats for the site -- including revenues(!)
  • Allow "rich listings" -- structured data from advertisers
Very interesting. Very contrary to some basic Google ideals. Much more complicated interface, transparency, etc.

Big challenge to make it scale and not get killed by spam. Will be interesting to watch.