Founder of Wikipedia plans search engine to rival Google

Times Online ^ | 24 December 2006 | James Doran

[shrinkermd]

Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia, is set to launch an internet search engine with amazon.com that he hopes will become a rival to Google and Yahoo!

Mr Wales has begun working on a search engine that exploits the same user-based technology as his open-access encyclopaedia, which was launched in 2003.

The project has been dubbed Wikiasari — a combination of wiki, the Hawaiian word for quick, and asari, which is Japanese for “rummaging search”.

Mr Wales told The Times that he was planning to develop a commercial version of the search engine through Wikia Inc, his for-profit company, with a provisional launch date in the first quarter of next year.

Earlier this year he secured multimillion-dollar funding from amazon.com and a separate cash injection from a group of Silicon Valley financiers to finance projects at Wikia.

[shrinkermd]

To all a Merry Christmas

[The Mayor]

Merry Christmas

[SolidWood]

Good. I want more and better alternatives to ChinaGoogle.

[smonk]

google has got a great deal more to offer than just the search engine. google talk and calender, and their blackberry integration . . . . not to mention a document and spreadsheet application.

[Proud_USA_Republican]

Google stock holders get a lump of coal in their stockings.

[Terpfen]

So use Yahoo. Their new search algorithms are actually pretty good, rivaling Google's at this point.

[malia]

and google earth.

I use wikipedia alot ....... but have to remember that ANYONE can add to or edit the information so take the info with a grain of salt

[smonk]

---and google earth. ---

*slaps forehead*

of course. thank you.

[al baby]

BOOBLE?

[mtbopfuyn]

I use wikipedia alot ....... but have to remember that ANYONE can add to or edit the information so take the info with a grain of salt

And there's the reason I'll never use their search engine.

[capt. norm]

I know....I signed up for all things Google and they virtually supervised my computer use, wasted bandwidth and machine cycles....thus slowing down my machine.

I kept Gmail and still use Google for searches, but I'm dumping them as soon as another good one comes along and I'm hoping this will be it.

This doesn't even take into account Google's liberal slant on everything.

[6SJ7]

Wikiasari? Not very catchy. Need a better name like Wikifast or Wikifind.

[RightWhale]

There hasn't been a lot of improvement since Finger.

[Wormwood]

I use wikipedia alot ....... but have to remember that ANYONE can add to or edit the information so take the info with a grain of salt

Save youself some salt.

[smonk]

googletalk will indeed bring your computer to a screeching halt for 20 or 30 seconds once or twice a night; it maxes out your CPU. I believe it has something to do with auto updates.

[rawcatslyentist]

Will it have the Ra^ther "Fake but Accurate" search results of Spoogle?

Or will it be Shrillary friendly results?

[tranzorZ]

Yahoo has helped China too, hasn't it?

Anyway, I really like wikipedea. Yeah, "misinformed" people are allowed to add information but so are truely informed people too. Such is the case in a free flow of information. They could always switch to only using a handful of left wing nut college professors.

[skeptoid]

I've stuck with Dogpile since '98.

(I use maps.google, tho.)

[Joseph DeMaistre]

If it's anything like Wikipedia, which is run by a bunch of Communists, literally, then it will be 100 percent worthless.

If you ever go on Wikipedia, watch out for a jerk who calls himself FeloniousMonk.