Wikia Search Reviewers Missing the point

Wikia Search having launched into Alpha today has received a number of negative reivews, but I these reviewers are clearly missing the point. I would forgive them for not understanding what an “alpha relase” is, but the apparent tech centricity of their publishing sites does not allow such concession.

When I heard Mr Wales speak at the FCCJ in Tokyo last April, I was inspired by his plans for an open search engine. Clearly the key point behind Wikia Search is to built a platform based on openess and to share the technology with the world. To compare an alpha release of this bold project with Google is like comparing a spritely toddler with a top olympic athlete as though they were both adults.

Anyway Jimmy posted a response on the tech crunch article which eloqently makes this point:

Release early, release often.

It’s a project to *build* a search engine, not a search engine. We’ve been telling everyone that constantly. I’m sorry Michael’s disappointed, but having said that, we didn’t build it for him, but for people who think that openness, transparency, and participation are more important than slick releases.

When I launched Wikipedia, I wrote at the top of the first page “Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia”. On that day, anyone reviewing it would have laughed. What’s this? There’s nothing here! This is not an encyclopedia, it is an empty website with some funny editing syntax!

So the comparison to Google on day one is just mistaken. Google didn’t launch a project to build a human-powered search engine, they launched an algorithmic search engine with a clever new idea. So they didn’t have to wait for the humans to come in and start building it.

We aren’t even running with a real index yet, just a placeholder index. Yeah, the search sucks today. But that’s not the point. The point is that we are building something different.