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FoxMarks to Power Search Engine, kill Mahalo

TechCrunch reports that Mitch Kapor (of Lotus 1-2-3 fame) is building out his bookmark synchronization service Foxmarks into a search engine, using meta-data entered by users to power search results. Foxmarks counts 20 million unique URL’s in its human-powered index.

Del.icio.us should have been used by Yahoo! to do this the day after they were acquired. I suggested something similar in an earlier discussion about how Google’s AdSense could better serve ads. Point being: Yahoo is again failing to innovate or capitalize on their assets. They truly are the death by shareholder standard bearer.

Is Foxmarks a Google killer? Probably not. But: they have a growing asset with their human powered index, and the core bookmark-syncing system provides a value-added vector for spreading the tool and the brand. A flurry of press coverage could provide it with the impetus it needs to grab a piece of the search pie.

Is Foxmarks a Mahalo killer? Yes. Search engines fall on a continuum of totally alogorithmic (Google) and totally human (DMOZ, Mahalo). Foxmarks sits in the middle, occupying what I think is the sweet spot - it blends the volume handling of the algorithm with the data categorization of humans, adds in aggregation to increase credibility and smooth outrider results, and bundles it all together.

Of course, all of this discussion is academic. I haven’t seen Foxmarks in action, as I wasn’t at Foo Camp.

algorithm, calacanis, foxmarks, google, mahalo, search seo

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Digg the Real World: Bookstores and more

After writing about how grocery stores could embrace Web 2.0 and getting some interesting comments on social networking around creamed corn, I got to thinking about other opportunities that 2.0 principles have to come to the offline world.

Applying the Digg Algorithm to Bookshelves

Consider the example of a common book store, for instance. Items are up on shelves, arranged alphabetically by author, or in special sections ordered by release date, or a national best-seller list. The special sections are the equivalent of the Digg frontpage - the key difference, however, is that in the case of a bookstore, the contents of that front page are driven by factors that have little to do with the actual users of the bookstore - i.e.: the shoppers. At best, they are a product of national-level, week or month old, aggregated sales data.

So - why not create an algorithm to populate those shelves? National bestseller status and release dates would be factors in the algorithm; but so would local store level sales. So - when a local newspaper review drives a surge in sales of an author’s old book, the algorithm would push that book onto the store’s “frontpage” and capitalize on the opportunity. Or when Kurt Vonnegut’s passes away, the algorithm reacts to spur sales, and the store doesn’t miss a spike because the marketing department missed the significance of the headlines that day.

Anyway, many retail venues seem to be stuck with relatively static approaches to in-store promotions. I don’t think this needs to be the case.

algorithm, digg, marketing, promotions retail

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