Community + Search = Evaal?

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What makes eBay special? To me it’s not the technology, although that’s pretty damn impressive, especially now. But what sets eBay apart is the community of buyer’s and sellers. I was wondering when we’d see a search engine that’d add both a community of recommenders with an indexer like the one Google has and I just saw what could become just that in Evaal.

It’s very raw, and very early, but I like the impulse of Timothy Anyasi, founder of Idpact, Inc. who makes Evaal, a search engine that matches the power of an indexer , along with the community power which makes a better search experience (in theory).

He called me and asked what I thought. Here’s the scenario. You want to search for a Rolodex Watch. Go to Google and instantly get lost. Too many choices. There’s no way for you to pick out who is good, credible, or who won’t steal your money.

So, instead you go to Evaal. Here’s a search on Evaal for “watches.”

Why won’t someone game this and send me to their brother instead of sending me to a good retailer who’ll treat me well? Well, same way you can tell eBay sellers who are good or not. The community rates them.

The problem? There aren’t enough community members. So, most pages don’t have experts to ask.

The other problem with Evaal? The base index isn’t nearly good enough for me to take it seriously and the UI isn’t good enough to get my recommendation (I HATE frames, for instance, and it doesn’t have the polish that a modern Web site requires for a mass audience — they need to hire a designer who can at least get them up to parity with, say, Digg’s UI).

But, this is an interesting idea and one I’d like to see explored.

The advantage for you to get involved early is that if they fix the UI and index issues they’ll start getting an audience and if you’re the first “recommender” on a page you’ll have a lot of power to help refer search users elsewhere.

Why is that important? Well, say you refer someone to a realtor. Did you know that many realtors will pay a referral fee? Same with Amazon. Same with hosting companies and a whole host of businesses.

Interesting idea! I wonder why anyone hasn’t put an eBay style community onto a search engine before?

Published by Robert Scoble

I help entrepreneurs build their technology business' story, help with getting ready for investors, with other launch plans, and many other strategic things that can help your new startup. Call to talk: +1-425-205-1921 (text first).

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22 thoughts on “Community + Search = Evaal?”

  1. Looks like people are already gaming the system – see the multiple links in the results from your link for:

    Sexy women | adult dating sex | myspace stuff | Erotic pictures | sexy women | Gay | Porn | sex webcams | amateur films | …

    hmm..didnt know they made watches for any of that stuff.

    I can see your point about referrals despite your example though.

    Booger

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  2. Looks like people are already gaming the system – see the multiple links in the results from your link for:

    Sexy women | adult dating sex | myspace stuff | Erotic pictures | sexy women | Gay | Porn | sex webcams | amateur films | …

    hmm..didnt know they made watches for any of that stuff.

    I can see your point about referrals despite your example though.

    Booger

    Like

  5. The point you made about businesses being willing to pay a referral fee….

    Isn’t this what AdSense is? Isn’t Google saying they ARE the referrer? Are you saying that search engines have failed in their quest to reduce everything to a mathematical equation, and human involvement in the process is better after all?

    🙂

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  6. The point you made about businesses being willing to pay a referral fee….

    Isn’t this what AdSense is? Isn’t Google saying they ARE the referrer? Are you saying that search engines have failed in their quest to reduce everything to a mathematical equation, and human involvement in the process is better after all?

    🙂

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  7. Oh – and when I first saw the name “Evaal” as part of your article title, I thought you were making some sort of joke about Google and Eviil 😉

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  8. Oh – and when I first saw the name “Evaal” as part of your article title, I thought you were making some sort of joke about Google and Eviil 😉

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  11. Community stuff has to start small.
    I used to have accounts on a lot of networking sites. Orkut has been the most productive for me because I was invited by a friend who took the time too introduce me to groups over there and find old friends.

    Any community site that has a free and open registration and isn’t referral based is bound to be misused.
    Take Gmail for e.g if there is a gmail account which consistently sends spam, it can be traced back to the parent referal which can further be checked to see if the same person has started multiple spam accounts.

    Buy.com started something for ‘products’ but then no one ‘stays’ on buy.com’s site for long. Which is why I think Amazon is the company to look for. They are trying to get people to stay on their site even after shopping around. They have a good community of reviewers. They just have to just get their UI a little less cluttered (IMO).

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  12. Community stuff has to start small.
    I used to have accounts on a lot of networking sites. Orkut has been the most productive for me because I was invited by a friend who took the time too introduce me to groups over there and find old friends.

    Any community site that has a free and open registration and isn’t referral based is bound to be misused.
    Take Gmail for e.g if there is a gmail account which consistently sends spam, it can be traced back to the parent referal which can further be checked to see if the same person has started multiple spam accounts.

    Buy.com started something for ‘products’ but then no one ‘stays’ on buy.com’s site for long. Which is why I think Amazon is the company to look for. They are trying to get people to stay on their site even after shopping around. They have a good community of reviewers. They just have to just get their UI a little less cluttered (IMO).

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  13. I think Yahoo’s working along these lines (slowly) by integrating del.icio.us and some other tagged content and working with more and more user profiling stuff.

    As you suggest, an army of raters who have some sort of anti spam filter is probably the best way to rate sites for many, many things.

    Could this be Google’s Achilles heel? They hate human interventions.

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  14. I think Yahoo’s working along these lines (slowly) by integrating del.icio.us and some other tagged content and working with more and more user profiling stuff.

    As you suggest, an army of raters who have some sort of anti spam filter is probably the best way to rate sites for many, many things.

    Could this be Google’s Achilles heel? They hate human interventions.

    Like

  15. “Which is why I think Amazon is the company to look for. They are trying to get people to stay on their site even after shopping around. They have a good community of reviewers.”

    Agreed. I also think Amazon, much like eBay, has a large enough audience to tap into “The Wisdom of Crowds” for a search product.

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  16. “Which is why I think Amazon is the company to look for. They are trying to get people to stay on their site even after shopping around. They have a good community of reviewers.”

    Agreed. I also think Amazon, much like eBay, has a large enough audience to tap into “The Wisdom of Crowds” for a search product.

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  19. Fortunately you filed a patent application? Well, a “patent pending” does not make a patent. It’s just an application with a 3-to-7 year evaluation process. I find it very hard to believe this has not already been applied for by more than a handful of inventors.

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  20. Fortunately you filed a patent application? Well, a “patent pending” does not make a patent. It’s just an application with a 3-to-7 year evaluation process. I find it very hard to believe this has not already been applied for by more than a handful of inventors.

    Like

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