Kosmix: Your Guide to the Web from Kosmix on Vimeo.
The British magazine The New Statesmen’s CultureTech blog has just hinted me to Kosmix, which is a BROWSE engine as opposed to a SEARCH engine. Here’s how NS describes it:
The challenges facing anyone attempting to take on the champ are seemingly insurmountable. The problem is that you’re not just fighting a brilliant search engine – you’re trying to reprogram the muscle memory of billions of browsers. For many users Google isn’t even a conscious choice, it’s a reflex.
A good job then that new entrant Kosmix isn’t actually a search engine, according to its founders it’s a browse engine. Having just secured $20 million of new funding,
the site has opened up to the public for the first time in what’s charmingly called a ‘beta-ish’ launch. The home page gives you a clear indication of what to expect when you use it to search – sorry – browse.
Strictly in terms of business, I think Kosmix is off to a good start. We all know that fighting the Google on its own terms is a near impossibility. Now I’m not quite sure whether Kosmix in its functionality, that is to say, in its use will actually be much different than what Google has done in terms of its homepage feature which it calls iGoogle. For all intents and purposes, it seems as if Kosmix is nothing more than a customizable homepage with one additional feature which is a kind of organized BuzzFeed.
The blog post from CultureTech makes note of this criticism but I think it may be something useful to continue to develop something like a customizable homepage for Web 2.0 users because the Internet will be the operating platform for more and more applications. (By this I mean we will soon have most applications be web apps a la Google Docs.) And by all means, many are already onto this and will do so.
What do you all think?
X-posted at Human Potential
3 responses so far ↓
Michael // December 10, 2008 at 2:36 pm |
I think I’d bet my left, er. leg, that it doesnt ever beat out “the champ”. That said, I dont imagine its their goal, unlike NS seems to think. Google is perfect at what it does. Find something— anything, fast. End of story. I dont see anyone besting that, nor do I see the desire for that going away. There is room for different ways of engaging with the web, like the one Kosmix is trying to push, just dont expect the rise of something like Kosmix to eek out your favorite tech company Doles.
SH // December 10, 2008 at 2:56 pm |
Haha. I will be the first to admit that my level of disdain for Google is only matched by the feeling of admission that Google will always remain on top. Criticism of it is useful and necessary but it won’t change the current dynamic–much like my feelings regarding capitalism.
I am only interested in Kosmix (and other technological competitors of Google) because of the new ways of thinking about the Web that it engenders, not necessarily the actual toppling of the big G itself. I think there is some of that in Kosmix.
Why the name “Deep Web” misses the point « Caught in the Web // February 23, 2009 at 1:11 pm |
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