Competing with Google is never going to be easy. Baidu manages it in China, Yandex leads in Russia and in other countries throughout the world, certain search engines have reasonable enough market shares that they can still be said to be competing with Google. In North America and Europe on the other hand, MSN and Yahoo! still have a slippery foothold in most places but Google is becoming increasingly dominant and for many people (especially in the SEO industry) a new challenger would be more than welcome - just to make things more interesting.
Powerset
Powerset launched itself as new way to search Wikipedia but it was immediately obvious to many people in the industry that the technology could be put to use on the whole web if only the resources were available. The company was quickly snapped up by Microsoft for around $100 million dollars. The suggestion from Microsoft at the time was that they wanted to utilise the intellect of Powerset's employees but the price tag suggests they wanted the technology too. All has gone quiet on that front but it seems likely that MSN will, at some point in the future, launch a product or search option based on Powerset technology.
Wikia
After a fairly disastrous launch, Jimmy Wales' Wikia has gradually launched some of the functionality that should really have been there from the start. Interestingly, Google this week launched SearchWiki, a feature that appears to be in direct competition to Wikia. Google's product is easier and nicer to look at and, due to sheer size and influence of the company, it's already taken the lead over Wikia in the customisable search stakes. But don't write off Wikia yet - it'll be a slow burner. The product is much improved since launch and is likely to build up a loyal user base.
Project Quaero
This French state sponsored project has produced little of note as yet, despite its "EuroGoogle" tag. Quaero is a long term project and may produce some useful technology at some point, but don't hold your breath. If any search engine deserves to be named the new "EuroGoogle", it's Europeana. A project sponsored by the EU, it will supposedly "create a one-stop-shop to access history, art, literature, cinema and music from across the continent" but there's no word yet on whether Europeana will also index Lolcats.
Blekko
Maverick Rich Skrenta's Blekko site is still showing an image of a paper mask with socks for ears. All has gone quiet on this front, which could be good or bad - Skrenta's last blog post was in April.
Cuill
Since the much hyped launch and inevitable backlash, nothing too obvious has happened to Cuill. The results have improved although it mixes up images with the wrong results. There haven't been any strong rumours about any potential take-overs that were predicted at the launch. It would seem for now that Cuill is down and wounded. Expect a re-launch, hopefully one that's better thought out than the last one.
Of all these search engines, it seems that Powerset is the big winner and Cuill the big loser since our last analysis. Wikia still shows signs of promise and all is quiet with Blekko and Quaero. Sadly, it doesn't seem that any of the above is going to change the world of search any time soon.
