WikiSeek Purpose Confusing to Some
WikiSeek is a byproduct of the Wikipedia phenomonon, and the purpose of WikiSeek is to better search none other than Wikipedia itself. This has confused several people, especially since it appears to be much like the other company that is a much talked about offspring of Wikipedia--Wikia. Wikipedia search results that show for a WikiSeek query can be edited; hence the wiki nature of the service. But WikiSeek suffers from the same perils that many search engine start-ups are facing, and that's the fact that they have very few search results.
Though backed by Sequoia, many are wondering what WikiSeek's true purpose would be, and how they will go about incentivising someone to use WikiSeek and use the edit tool for Wikipedia articles. It would be different if you could edit the search results. Perhaps that would provide more value than simply offering a way to search for entries on Wikipedia. While they do display results that are not from Wikipedia, these cannot be modified in any manner.
WikiSeek does have a few good features though, including a tag cloud that is displayed with each search query, and a search plug-in for you to add to your own website. Otherwise, I can't imagine many other than Wikipedia fans utilizing WikiSeek's service.
Comments
thanks for writing about wikiseek! i am one of the founders, but i am here on vox in an unofficial capacity.
anyway, we do have an experimental editable version of wikiseek called Wikiseek Community Edition. it's just a little social experiment to see what happens.
you wrote "many are wondering what WikiSeek's true purpose would be", and that's the $64,000 question isn't it? suffice it to say that wikipedia is a fantastic sandbox for leaning about a couple of different types of user behavior. it's relatively high-quality content, and the content has been categorized.
now, how do we apply what we learn? you'll have to wait and see!
there's your exclusive interview.
=)
john