Jatalla

Link: Jatalla.com - Featuring the Most Powerful Search Engine on Earth: Your Brain. Well yes, that's as maybe. This is a neat idea - users rank results. Yes, I know that users can already do this with things like Google personalized and so on, but this promises to be different. You get results and vote (sorry, you lexivote) for a result that works for you, and this pushes it up the rankings.

Only... it's very hard to get anything to work with. My usual egotistical search for "Phil Bradley" produced no results. The solution to this problem is to do another search that does pull up results which you can then vote on, making it more likely that your preferred site does come up next time around. What other searches bring up my name? Internet Consultant usually works well - 0 results. Internet librarian - 0 results. CILIP (UK version of ALA) 0 results. Search Engine Watch 0 results.

Clearly this approach isn't working, so lets just get broad - BBC gives me 3 results; not exactly a stunning result. I really don't like being negative, but surely a search engine needs to start somewhere - and to be blunt, what's in it for the users? I can already get good results, or I can personalize my results, or I can use a search builder to really focus what I'm doing, so where is the value for me in this system?

I think I'll pass on it to be honest.

Comments

[Scott]

It also seems to be the first search engine in history to return no results for searches on 'porn' or 'sex' - so very child friendly at least! But in al seriousness I agree. In it's current form, it is hard to see the point of the excercise.

[Bri]

Hey Phil,

Wanted to let you know that Socialmeter.com is for sale:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=200024360366