Every Wednesday on AltSearchEngines, we invite an alt CEO to boast about his or her search engine. As part of the philosophy of this new blog, we want, occasionally, to let an alternative search engine  CEO to speak directly to you, as if you were sitting in their plush corner office!

Our first CEO is Robert Risberg of Picsearch.

Three secrets from the search industry

As a technology provider Picsearch is in the business of helping clients build both their brand and traffic. The average end user will not necessarily understand that Picsearch is supplying the world’s largest websites with the most highly valued services available. As an insider it is always an exciting opportunity to be able to tell a few secrets.

1. Image search provides a vast advertisement inventory.

Approximately 10 percent of all searches on the Internet are image searches (Hitwise November 2006). Since search is the single most popular online activity, image search is potentially the largest un-monetized online advertisement opportunity. The recent and favorable court ruling in the case between Google and Perfect10 will probably make it easier for search engines to enter the advertisement market of image search. Judge Sandra Ikuta of the Ninth Court summarized their verdict: “We conclude that the significantly transformative nature of Google’s search engine, particularly in light of its public benefit, outweighs Google’s superseding and commercial uses of the thumbnails in this case.”

2. Satisfying end-users is a good indicator of quality

Search technology is an extremely challenging and complex subject for almost every journalist. Reviews of search engines easily become a mix of hearsay and guessing games. One way of evaluating the quality of a search service is to examine the reasons search engines choose a particular search technology provider. In the case of image search there are three major providers in the world: Picsearch, Google and Yahoo.

The largest search engine in the Arabic speaking world Araby.com based their choice of search service on premium family friendliness (where pornography is filtered). The most trafficked site in the Czech Republic Seznam.cz needed a provider which could make specific adjustments for the search engine in terms of the Czech language. When the largest directory group in the Spanish and Portuguese-speaking world TPI Noxtrum.com selected a provider, relevancy was the key issue.

3. Universal search on the rise

Recently Google changed their user interface to include images, videos and maps in an integrated result page. For some time, leading search engines in Norway www.sesam.no, the Netherlands www.ilse.nl, Israel www.walla.co.il and many others have in similar ways integrated results from different sources enhancing the end-user experience. Integration of different information sources usually includes web, image, news, video, shopping and yellow pages. Picsearch always embraces innovative ideas such as these when they are spread to a larger audience.

Flexibility and diversity create advantages

One of the advantages of not being an extremely large company is that one can act swiftly and more easily focus on changes which will enhance a service for end users. Being culturally sensitive to different parts of the world also gives Picsearch an advantage when we adjust our services for partners and users in other parts of the world. Given that the web is a world without borders it’s extremely helpful to have staffing which reflects this diversity. That is why we are proud to tell our partners that over half of the employees working at Picsearch are from outside of Scandinavia and that over 14 different nationalities are represented. Understanding of language and culture makes it easier for us to understand the needs of our partners and to improve our services.