Jimmy Wales, the founder of online encyclopedia Wikipedia will today launch Wikia Search, an internet search engine that draws on human recommendations.
Following a brief period of private alpha testing, today's unveiling is billed as a "public alpha release."
Mr. Wales says his goal is to let volunteers improve search technology collectively, the way Wikipedia lets anyone add or change entries, regardless of expertise.
"That reduces the sort of bottleneck of two or three firms really controlling the flow of search traffic," said Wales.
User rating
According to Mr. Wales, Wikia Search is both a social network and a search engine.
On the site, users register, create profiles and are able to perform all the typical functions of a social networking site – messaging friends, uploading photos, etc.
The search engine will start with results drawn from its own machine-powered ranking then try to refine these with ratings from registered users.
Users can click on the links and rate the relevance of results on a five-star system; their evaluations are then fed back into the algorithm to improve the quality of information delivered.
While the Wikia service is open to anyone, only those who sign up, and disclose their identities, are able to submit ratings.
Commercial venture
Unlike Wikipedia which is now one of the ten most visited sites on the internet, the Wikia search engine is being built as a commercial venture.
Mr. Wales said he hoped eventually to make money from selling advertising on the site.
January 07, 2008
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