Site605 - Combining Strengths of Google and Mahalo
05/02/2008, 3 months 4 weeks ago
By now we all know how lucrative the market for human-powered search engines has become. There's About.com (which has started to show its age), the indecisive Mahalo research engine, the mobile-focused ChaCha, and even newcomer Stumpedia.
Now, there is yet another new service aiming to implement the human element into a search engine, but Site605 claims a difference in offering "a combination of man and machine can go where neither could individually." You're might be thinking that Mahalo already uses algorithms in addition to it human-created results, but Mahalo only uses the Google algorithm to generate results for search terms that have not yet been created by guides (whereas Stumpedia is completely human-dependent and does not return any result for terms not yet added).
If Site605 wants to succeed however, it is going to have to (at the very least) provide a lot more information for users and redesign its results pages. A name change wouldn't hurt either. With most services and sites that I review, there is an about page somewhere along with FAQs and other useful information for users to better understand what the service actually provides.
With Site605, however, that is not the case. Upon first visit to the home page, there is a short two-paragraph letter about the hybrid model used and how it "can effectively deliver the latest information on the tens of thousands of subjects that make up the mid-tail of web search," but that is all you will find outside the actual search engine result pages (SeRPs). How about at least letting people know who the founder is or what plans are in discussion for the future direction of the service?
After getting beyond the initial shock of Site605's lack of company information, I delved into the finding out about the actual service and what it provides that is so much better than algorithmic power alone or human power alone.
This led to nothing but further disappointment. Viewing the returned results page for "Pregnant man" (one of the site's hot topics), I found a cluttered mess of links and article snippets that seemed to be arranged in no particular order. Sure there were headers titled "Window on the Web" and "News - Pregnant man" but Site605 is clearly in need of a well-versed CSS coder who could make the site much more visually appealing and organize the content so that users eyes can actually focus certain sections pertaining to their needs. Right now, all of the text is the same color, there are no columns or horizontal dividers. I mean, the news results could at least be given a wider margin in between each result (see the cluttered look of the screen shot below).
Judging from what Site605 is currently offering to users, there is no clear advantage to its hybrid model. I would much rather use Google and search through its better organized, albeit machine-generated results. I can't see Site605 lasting long without making some serious changes to its website, starting with a better description of how its hybrid model is supposed to function.
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Michael,
I’m glad you had a chance to look over Site605, even if the merits weren’t apparent on the pages you visited. Much of your criticism seems to be on the look & feel (”Site605 is clearly in need of a well-versed CSS coder who could make the site much more visually appealing and organize the content….”). This is an area we are going to iterate and improve, undoubtedly. Our intention was to get the idea up and running, and begin to implement our hybrid model. The hybrid model isn’t intended to be that complicated- people will supplement the computer generated content with a summary, and perhaps some modification to the generated material. Perhaps we can make that more apparent on the site.
Best,
Bob