Mark Cuban is banging the drum for IceRocket, the latest metasearch tool to challenge the Google/Yahoo hegemony. In his post “Watch Out Google…Here We Come!”: Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, founder of Broadcast.com, soon to be TV star (The Benefactor, this Fall), and Web 2.0 speaker, claims any number of innovative features in the new site:
Im not involved in the day to day, Ive offered to help come up with some unique features that hopefully can allow them to seperate from the pack. To me, this is a unique way to “design my own search engine”. The features that are and will be included, are the things I look for when Im doing my searches.
Some of the things you can already find at http://www.icerocket.com are:
Web Search
– Thumbnail photos of results homepages…..- one of the things i hate about all search engines is that you click on a site hoping for a quality site, and you get an empty or shell website. The photos of the site give a quick look so you can see before you click. This can be turned on or off
– Quick View….Without leaving the results of search page, you can see the top 40 pct of the destination page as a short cut to deciding if the site is what you are looking for. If its what you want, a quick click and the page opens up completely
– Info – This is the traffic ranking from Alexa. It lets you know before you click whether anyone else goes to the site according to Alexa.
The site also offers news and picture search, and “Find a Friend” – which searches personals, far as I can tell. My quick take: nothing really unique here, but it’s great to see yet another player in the field. And yes, Mark invested in Mamma.com just a year or so ago…he offered no comment on why he’s all over IceRocket now….If you want a quick take on the service, read the comments on Mark’s post, they are mixed…
“Watch out google,” well Marc they are watching alrght, but even they like us can’t figure out what your shouting about.
Someone is going to shock us, I’m sure real soon (IBM don’t count because the query alone will cost $$$) – and John you’ve probably already interviewed them!!
My money at the moment is on the Flake/Cudugen partnership.
Not sure I get it. It’s a metasearch engine that uses thumbshots.org data for screen shots and alexa.com data for site info. Anything more here?
What’s the differentiator? Where’s the sustainable competitive advantage?
Cuban seems determined to keep his name in the search arena. His blog is nice but he seems to have a need to have his name on a metasearch product–go figure! Some think he wanted full ownership of Mamma and was denied. Frankly the media end of Mamma might have worked for him.