08 October 2008

Wikia's searching for new applications

Wikia Search continues its hunt for a slice of the search market with the launch of a new Intelligent Search platform. The new platform will allow developers to create applications for the open source search engine, which first opened its doors in January of this year - putting its future success in the hands of the public.

Wikia Intelligent Search Extensions (WISE) has been created with the intention of allowing individuals and organisations to create applications that enhance the search engine's ability to answer queries.

According to PC World, Wikia Search founder Jimmy Wales - who also founded the incomparable Wikipedia - said:

"As we look at what's going on in search, we've realised there's a whole bunch of rules-based mechanisms you can use to map a search query to the exact correct result."

The search engine already allows users to participate in building its index by manually adding or even deleting web pages - the most surprising part of this process being that contributions don't have to go through a vetting process; rather, changes are made immediately.

Large and influential organisations such as Thomson Reuters, The Washington Post and Twitter have created extensions that aim to allow Wikia Search to provide results that are more specifically relevant to queries. Now the engine hopes that WISE will automate user participation for professional organisations. Mr Wales said:

"We'll get a whole new level of user-built search. Instead of having to individually edit one result at a time, which is useful in some contexts, here users can create applications for whole categories or whole rules of searches."

Documentation and a sandbox will be provided for the building and testing of the new applications Wikia Search hopes to receive. They will then be reviewed before going live on the site.

Could this latest appeal to community spirit be the push Wikia Search needs to grab some attention? It certainly seems as though the engine needs it; back in January, Mr Wales asserted that even a 3 per cent share of the search market would make Wikia sustainable - and, according to figures from TechCrunch, at the moment it only receives 0.013 per cent of the US search market. The numbers just don't seem to be adding up for this search contender at the moment.

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