The makers of Blekko believe they've built a great alternative to
Google, but they're also realistic. They know their two-year-old
Internet search engine won't ever supplant Google as the most popular
place to search on laptop and desktop computers.
But Web surfing on
tablet computers is a different matter, creating an opportunity that
Blekko hopes to exploit with a new product called Izik - a search engine
designed especially for Apple Inc.'s iPads and tablets running Google's
Android software.
Izik, whose name is a riff on 17th-century
scientist Isaac Newton, debuted Friday with the release of free apps for
the iPad and Android tablets.
To cater to the more visual format
of tablets, Izik displays search results in rows of information capsules
that can be easily scrolled with a swipe of a finger. Users scroll
vertically to look at different categories related to a search request.
Scrolling horizontally displays more capsules within each category,
which vary depending on the request.
Blekko CEO and founder Rich
Skrenta likens the experience to a hybrid service that is part search
engine, part magazine and part discovery tool. Izik also shares some
similarities to a tablet search app called Axis that longtime Google
rival Yahoo Inc. released last May in an attempt to shake up the market.
Like Izik, Axis also relies on visual thumbnails to list search
results.
Izik's system is much different from Google's.
Entering
"Apple" into Izik on Friday produced a set of results sorted into these
easily navigable categories: "Top Results," "Images," ''Recipes,"
''News," ''Reviews," and "Tech." Most of the information and pictures
either pertained to Apple the company or the fruit.
Searching for
the term at Google generated a map pinpointing the location of several
nearby Apple stores. The rest of the results page was mostly devoted to a
stack of blue links to other websites - a familiar format that has
become the industry standard.
But Skrenta believes search will
have to change as more people become tablet owners and start to use them
more frequently than their laptop computers. With more than 100 million
of the devices already sold since the iPad's April 2010 debut, tablets
already have contributed to declining sales of traditional PCs and
printers.
Skrenta is betting it's only a matter of time before the
technological upheaval triggered by tablets hits the search market and
people start to break their Googling habits.
Google so far has
been able to extend its dominance to tablets, largely because its search
engine is the built-in option on the iPad and most Android devices.
But
the algorithms and format that Google uses on tablets and laptops are
basically the same. Skrenta doubts Google will switch to a format as
dramatically different as Izik's approach because it still makes most of
its money from online advertising displayed on traditional PCs. The
tendency to stick with a long-established product that is still bringing
most of a company's money while challengers are introducing
breakthroughs that threaten the status quo is sometimes referred to the
"innovator's dilemma."
Blekko's namesake search engine also sought
to address a problem that Skrenta didn't think was being adequately
addressed by Google. By relying on humans to highlight the most useful
information under frequently searched topics, Blekko, which is based in
Redwood Shores, Calif., tries to remove the rogue websites that have
learned to how to manipulate search formulas to gain a prominent ranking
in search results.
Although Blekko began working on its
technology five years ago, its search engine didn't debut until late
2010. About four months after that, Google unveiled sweeping changes to
its search algorithm in an effort to reduce the rubbish showing up in
its results.
Although its search engine has yet to undercut
Google's dominance, Blekko has attracted a loyal following. It draws
about 12 million monthly visitors and has raised about $50 million in
venture capital from a group of investors that includes actor Ashton
Kutcher and Yandex, a Russian search engine that is more popular in its
home country than Google.