AltSearchEngines’ Weekly Wrapup

March 7th, 2008 by Charles S. Knight
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »


As usual, this was a very busy week at ASE.


We announced the March version of The Top 100 Alternative Search Engines, our CEO chat was with Chase Norlin, CEO of Pixsy, and our featured country was Greece. The “View” was from wine search engine Vinquire.

We introduced two very interesting search engines, eeggi and iGlue, not to mention IFRA Search, WatZatSong, Conjungo, Plenty Car, Twing, Taptu, and All About Pets! After reviewing alternative search engines for over nine months, we continue to find new ones practically every day!

Last but not least, Songza, GenieKnows, Spock, and SearchMedica all announced updates, and I admitted to being addicted to Search! We would also like to thank our faithful sponsors, Quintura and Kosmix and invite future ones!

A Chat with Pixsy’s CEO Chase Norlin

March 7th, 2008 by Charles S. Knight
Posted in CEO Views | No Comments »

This week, AltSearchEngines (ASE) welcomes the CEO of Pixsy, Chase Norlin. Norlin has spent the past fourteen years in the emerging technologies and online media space. Prior to Pixsy, Norlin served as Senior Business Development Executive at ValueClick, where he managed publisher distribution and emerging technologies for the ValueClick display ad network, paid search, and comparison shopping divisions.

Prior to ValueClick, Norlin was Senior Business Development Consultant to InfoSpace, charged with publisher distribution and emerging applications for the paid search division. Norlin also developed Sony’s first online photo sharing venture and founded the web’s first video sharing company. He has also served as an EIR at Boeing Ventures in launching Boeing’s online photo and video licensing division.

Norlin received his BA from UC Berkeley and MA from The University of Chicago and is a regular speaker on digital media, online advertising, and search.

ASE: What is Pixsy’s special niche and how was it uncovered?

Chase Norlin: Pixsy is the leading provider of private label video, image, and news search to websites, application developers, and devices. Our unique focus is our flexible and scaleable partner platform that enables anyone to create rich multimedia experiences off of our technology. These rich multimedia experiences create new engagement, traffic, and monetization for our partners.

ASE: How did you become involved?

Chase Norlin: I co-founded the company along with my partner, Rich Lerz, as a result of unique experiences in the online video space and at ad networks like ValueClick and Infospace. As a pure B2B distribution company, we focus entirely on servicing our partners who utilize our technology. Having been in the business now for many years, with extensive customer testing, we’ve developed unique features and products that inherently appeal to site and application owners.

ASE: Describe a typical day in your life as CEO of a startup.

Chase Norlin: The CEO of a startup requires way too much for me to describe here in a few sentences. Bottom line: you need to constantly be creating value and prioritizing the optimal ways to achieve that. In addition to core business activities, you have a billion distractions, hundreds of daily emails, speaking and travel engagements, competitors firing away at you, etc. This is a war and you need great troops and ammunition to defeat your enemy.

ASE: How is searching with Pixsy different than using other search engines. What might one find that would please and surprise?

Chase Norlin: We are entirely different in the way that our product solves our customers’ problems. I really can’t go into more detail here as that’s our secret sauce. This is why major brands like Lycos, Travelocity, Fox, and hundreds of others utilize our technology.

ASE: Please give us some cool sample searches.

Chase Norlin: I’d rather show you some great customer implementations. Here’s a great News Search implementation that Lycos has built off our technology – http://news.lycos.com/?itemid=78243965&ctid=1&catid=5.

ASE: Do you partner with any other alternative search engines?

Chase Norlin: We power search for many of them.

ASE: How much marketing do you do/what’s your target demographic?

Chase Norlin: Pixsy has spent zero dollars on marketing, which attests to the strength of our business model and technology. Additionally, our platform enables almost any website, application, or device to customize a media experience that is uniquely targeted to their audience.

ASE: On the personal side… Please tell us about yourself.

Chase Norlin: I’m originally from New York but since 7th grade have been a West Coaster. Grew up in Aptos, California and went to Berkeley undergrad and The University of Chicago for grad school. I have an incredible wife who is a successful artist and blogger, and a miniature Boston Terrier that’s been on “Planet’s Funniest Animals.”

ASE: Who inspires you in the business sector? Personally? Why?

Chase Norlin: Great question. Honestly, not particularly inspired by business leaders, I’m more inspired by innovators and creators. Creating something from scratch and getting it off the ground is the hardest and more rewarding accomplishment one can engage in I believe.

ASE: When I’m not working I’m ________ (please fill in the blank).


Chase Norlin: When I’m not working I’m shopping for clothes that have skulls or military emblems on them, as it’s important to wear garments that strike fear in your adversaries.

ASE: If you weren’t the CEO of Pixy, what would you be doing today?

Chase Norlin: Founder/CEO of a new venture that will revolutionize the pizza industry.

ASE: Where do you think search will be in one year?

Chase Norlin: Search will ultimately become a push and personalized medium, where customized data and media will be delivered to users based on preferences. The days of “Pointcast” are coming back (e.g. look at services like myYahoo and Pageflakes and Netvibes). Expect that to get even bigger. Ultimately, the Internet is about utility, getting what you want quickly and with minimal effort.

ASE: Thanks for joining us, Chase. Best of luck to you and Pixsy!


AltSearchEngines is looking for a sponsor for this feature. Your company’s logo, tag line, and link would appear here after every profile. Please email: Charles@ReadWriteWeb.com for more information.

The iGlue Search Engine – Check out this demo!

March 7th, 2008 by Charles S. Knight
Posted in Alts, Innovations, Newcomers, News, Reviews | No Comments »

Check out this Demo about iGlue.

Now.

Click on “iGlue Demo”

From their site: The iGlue Project – In4mation 4 you!

in4, Ltd., based in Budapest, Hungary, has developed iGlue, an integrated online content manager and search engine that goes beyond today’s widespread, language-dependant search mechanisms based on identifying character strings. iGlue identifies and manages entities, not keywords. Whether he is called Alejandro Magno, Büyük İskender or Lissandru lu Granni, these names all refer to the same person: Alexander the Great, and most likely we would like to find information about the person himself. This is the principle iGlue uses to manage entities appearing in web content, and it will find relevant information even if the given element appears in a form that is different from what we used in launching the search.

Hyperdata

The most common model for connecting data on the web has been hyperlinking, which takes you not to the content element but to the web page that contains it. A hyperlink is one-directional, it points to one location and only works with net addresses. As an improvement on the hyperlink, iGlue has developed the hyperdata model. In this system, elements of syntactic value are linked with each other and any element of a web page, whether it is a word, image or a piece of data, can become an information-rich junction.

Some of the main features of the hyperdata model include:

* locally displayed information about the entity
* identifying entities instead of character strings
* directly pointing to entities instead of IP addresses
* context sensitivity – working with network-based applications, such as map viewers, calendars, media players
* a relation system trackable in either direction *
* option to choose several destinations from one junction
* no need for built-in linking, the application is capable of mapping the entity’s relational structure according to customized preferences
* entity-level relevance, handling of homonyms and synonyms, i.e., the application is able to recognize whether the word “smith” is a proper name or an occupation

iGlue is capable of mobilizing and interpreting simple character strings thereby entering them into the web’s semantic circulation. Using iGlue, any element of a blog, database or news portal can be turned into an information junction by the click of a mouse!

Opentity

The heart of the iGlue application is a collaboratively developed, flexibly structured database that contains semantic elements, entities and their relational connections. We believe that the collaboration of motivated, enthusiastic people can create a new, network-based intellectual depository of the information age which may take us to the next level of knowledge management.

The database’s main features include:

* collaborative editing
* free usage and accessibility
* manages the semantic relations of information
* open architecture to cooperate with other systems
* duplication and error filtering aided by automated mechanisms
* multi-lingual text handling
* manages resources and resource hierarchies
* feedback-based quality control

All About Pets Alternative Search Engine for Pets

March 7th, 2008 by Charles S. Knight
Posted in Alts, Reviews | No Comments »

All About Pets is a community website run by The Blue Cross, Britain’s pet charity. For over a century The Blue Cross has remained dedicated to caring for and supporting Britain’s companion animals and their owners.

They strive to educate pet owners in responsible pet ownership. The Pet Knowledge section on this website is one of the many ways we try to inform pet owners about their beloved animal, and our literature reaches millions of people.

In creating this site they hope to have made the perfect website for animal lovers; a place to talk to like-minded people and make friends, discover events taking place near you around the country, and learn more about your favourite furry friend. Enjoy exploring the site and getting involved as much or as little as you wish. The surveys, listings groups and forums are only as helpful as the people who use them.

Use the search tool at the top-right of the website if you are having trouble finding your way around. The orange panel of navigation across is your simplest route to each area, but also make use of the Popular keywords, latest posts and other cross-links to explore.

We added two dogs, two wolf hybrids, and two cats!