LeWeb 3 Contestant In Profile: Semingo

Before Profy hits Paris tomorrow for LeWeb 3, I thought it?d be fitting to run some startups by you. Why? Well, why not? It?ll give you a feel for what to expect. You?ll familiarize yourself a bit. Or something like that.

Anyway, let?s press on. First up, Semingo. It?s a social search startup. What?s social search? Beats me.

No, seriously, social search is kind of cool. (I suppose. In a sort of Google-wants-to-be-your-buddy-and-go-karting-together kind of way.) The objective is to take a bunch of search results, and, as a communal experiment, vet the links for relevance and importance in terms of a collective preference. No cold-blooded algorithms to rely on. Just real people, pulling strings. And because it?s an all-together type system, the burden responsibility for the project?s success is shared across an (ideally) expanding swath of users. The more participants, the easier it is on everyone. Right?

Unfortunately, if you look at something like Semingo objectively, you conjure up some questions. Questions about things like its general function. And it?s purpose. Then there?s the inevitable comparison to Google and the like, whether warranted or not.

Why should people bother to search socially? No one really has any great deal of fun trawling the Web. They do it because they have to. They couldn?t care less how they go about their business. They simply want to get to where they need to go. Let the search engine designers figure out the quickest route from A to B, right? Not the user. The user has things to do. Like watch video that they downloaded. Maybe dirty video. Maybe dirty video that they may or may not have paid for.

Getting back on topic, the most successful social search triumph in the history of the Web is, without question, StumbleUpon. And that?s not really even a search system, per se. It?s more like a here?s-what-you-might-enjoy discovery tool. A vague spin on Digg, with a lottery-like twist.

One might ask why has StumbleUpon been a hit. I?ll tell you. Because it?s easy to use. Dead easy.

And with that basic logic, one would have to assume that something of Semingo?s makeup would need to require very little of the average user as well ? if it?s engineers wish it to operate properly and live among other Web successes, anyhow.

Suppose we?ll find out if it?s got the right stuff in the next few days? I?m doubtful. But to be fair, let?s wait and see.