New search engine taps into social networks
SAN FRANCISCO -- Google, the most popular Internet search engine, ranks results by polling all of cyberspace to find the most relevant information. But a new start-up thinks your friends' opinions should count more.
Eurekster Inc. is trying to build a business by combining two of the Internet's hottest trends: search and social networking.
When it launches today after several months of beta testing by consumers, the service at Eurekster.com will let users invite their friends by e-mail to try the search engine. The cluster of friends and friends-of-friends then becomes a social network whose Internet search queries shape the results of all its members.
Eurekster gets results like a normal search engine but ranks them according to the interests you and your friends have shown through past searches. For example, if many people in a social network use Eurekster to seek information about the Boston Red Sox, the websites they visit most will rise to the top in future Red Sox searches. Eurekster also lists queries that members of your social network have made -- although it doesn't say who made them -- and recent websites they have visited.
Eurekster is betting that "your network is interested in this, therefore you should be, too -- so go look at it," said Stowe Boyd, managing director of A Working Model, a technology consulting firm in Virginia.
Eurekster hopes to make money by selling ads related to specific search queries, known as sponsored search results, and by licensing its technology to Internet search providers and social networking websites. Overture Services Inc., a subsidiary of Yahoo Inc., powers Eurekster's sponsored and nonpaid search engines.
Eurekster's name plays off other popular services that link people online, including Napster, the file-sharing music program, and Friendster, the social networking site. Social networks have grown in popularity among Internet users looking for ways to connect with friends -- and among venture capitalists looking for the next Internet business to invest in. Friendster has more than 4 million registered users.
But the social networking services have struggled to find a way to get visitors to pay for what they offer. Eurekster is one way to do that, said chief executive Grant Ryan. He said the company is talking with social networking providers about using the Eurekster technology and sharing the revenue from paid-search results.
"We think we're fortunate to be playing in two hot spaces," said Steven E. Marder, Eurekster's chairman.
Danny Sullivan, editor of SearchEngineWatch.com, an online publication that tracks the search industry, said he knows of no other companies that marry social networking and Internet queries to create personalized results. But for it to work, he said, Eurekster must soon provide ways for users to create different categories of networks. They may want to enlist the help of business colleagues for one query and of their religious group for another query, he said. Eurekster executives said they plan to include that feature in future versions.
Anticipating privacy concerns, Eurekster included a box that users can check if they don't want their query to be listed. The service also will not list queries that appear related to pornography.
But if users forget to check the box, Eurekster has the potential to create awkward moments, especially when the social network is small. One potential mystery: Which one of your four friends on Eurekster searched for "Paris Hilton video"?
Chris Gaither can be reached at gaither@globe.com.
