Scour – Social Search – Influence Search Results
Image by cogdogblog via FlickrScour is being billed as the next thing in search (unlike the 100,000 other “next things”). In their own words, Scour was created:
…to deliver the most relevant results as efficiently as possible. Almost exactly 1 year later, Aftervote was acquired by Internext media, owner and operator of the ABCSearch Network and re-branded to Scour.com.
You sign up for an account and use the Scour engine or Scour toolbar in your browser to earn points for searches. In addition to searching, you rate the search results. The search results are from the big three – Google, Yahoo and Microsoft – so they are using existing results. Scour adds to the mix the ability for users to vote and comment on the results. A simple thumbs up or thumbs down helps Scout to improve on the search results. That is going to take a LOT of social interaction to truly filter out bad results. The point can eventually be converted into real money. Right now they give out a $25 Visa gift card for 6,500 points earned. Not bad, especially if you can weave it into your normal searching process. Since Google results are part of the mix anyway, it might not be too difficult.
I signed up to try out Scour, but I do have my doubts. The first thing that comes to mind is Agloco. This is “different” – firstly, as it is actually live now. We will see how the business plan actually works out.
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Scour seems like an interesting way to surf the web. I question whether incentivizing search is really the way to approach getting users to be social. Me.dium recently released a search engine that doesn’t neccessitate voting or commenting.
Me.dium’s Social Search, which leverages the Yahoo! Search BOSS platform, provides an entirely new level of information on top of traditional search. Me.dium’s Social Search harnesses the activity of the crowds to let you find information that has relevance based on what people are actually surfing right now. To become an influencer, simply download one of their social toolbars or sidebar.
Me.dium’s technology lets the inherent activity of real people – not robotic crawlers – determine relevance. Me.dium’s Social Search results show what people are surfing and find interesting, right now. While other search engines base relevance on how content links across pages, Me.dium’s Social Search shows you the most popular news, reviews, pictures and videos that other people are actually looking at in relation to your search term. And as the activity of the people online changes, so do the search results.
It’s actually quite a big scam, I’m trying to raise awareness as an ex-user who was promised payment, and then denied it.
I have been following the thread on their blog recently. Again, it isn’t a big deal to someone like me who is only using it occasionally to do some searching. The results are interesting and I am curious to see how people can influence the results. We will keep an eye on the payout situation.