By Erika Morphy LinuxInsider Part of the ECT News Network
05/01/07 3:58 PM PT
Google may not yet be looking over its shoulder at upstart open source search engine Wikia, but founder Jimmy Wales is assembling a team of heavy hitters to crank up the competition. Jeremie Miller, who created Jabber and developed the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol, is the latest to jump on board.
eMarketer Whitepaper: Optimizing the E-Commerce Experience
From the Web to the Contact Center, are you prepared to proactively engage and keep your savvy customers? Read how e-commerce leaders are optimizing their sites with ratings, reviews, live help, Web analytics, mobile and more.
Wikia, the open source search engine initiative and potential Google-killer, has snagged Jeremie Miller, who founded
Jabber, an open instant messaging platform.
Miller was handpicked by the Wikia project's founder, Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales.
"Jimmy sat down in January after he announced his intention to start this and said for it to succeed two things had to happen," Wikia CEO Gil Penchina told LinuxInsider. "One, it had to be a collaborative project. It can't turn into one company trying to take on the big search players. And two, it had to have someone who has led a major open source project before."
That description matches Miller's bona fides. He is not only recognized as the inventor of Jabber, but also of the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP), which allows instant messaging platforms to interoperate, and users to communicate freely and safely.
"The Internet and Web are founded on completely open principles," said Miller. "I've championed this philosophy for instant messaging and believe that the awesome power of search should be based on the same fundamental rules."
Piece by Piece
Miller's first task will be to develop the necessary infrastructure to allow a thousand or so volunteer developers to contribute to the project, Penchina said.
"Search breaks down into lots of problems -- collecting and organizing data, picking algorithms, and so on," he noted, adding that end users should have a choice in deciding which solution works best.
"If you think there is a better indexing system, you should be allowed to plug and play it. The consumer should be able to decide," said Penchina.
As for further project benchmarks, "those are Jeremie's calls now," he remarked. "I can tell you that we will start to see more communication among the developers -- we will start building out more project roadmaps."
Consumers Win
The first push will be for the developers, which means that Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) doesn't have to worry just yet about being displaced.
"Linux during its first year wasn't a lot of fun for consumers to use on the desktop," Penchina recalled.
In the end, though, consumers are the initiative's target group.
"I believe Internet search is currently broken," stated Wales, "and the way to fix it is to build a community whose mission is to develop a search platform that is open and totally transparent."
Microsoft Silverlight: Flash Killer or Wannabe? May 01, 2007
Although Microsoft's new Silverlight application competes head-to-head with Adobe's Flash, how well users will receive Silverlight remains to be seen. Adobe enjoys a large base of Flash users who will need a compelling reason to switch. Current Microsoft customers will be most likely to give Silverlight a try, Yankee Group analyst Laura DiDio said, while Adobe users will probably consider carefully before switching.
Related Stories
Wikipedia Discredits Open Source, Data Tsunami and the Lenovo Laptop Phone March 12, 2007
At the core of open source is the belief that mysterious others assure the quality of an open source product. However, few actually have the skills required to do such a review. If, in the case of Wikipedia -- where there should be a lot of experts -- you still can't trust the content, the people or the quality, then how can you trust that open source works where such a review is less likely?
Wikia Offers Free Community Web Hosting December 12, 2006
OpenServing, a free service for aspiring bloggers and Web site creators, is being touted as a welcome extension of the open source concept. The proposed Web hosting service will provide software, bandwidth, storage and computing power for free. Plus, there's a bonus: Users can keep all their ad revenues.
Related News Alerts
More by Erika Morphy
Ballmer Gives Shareholders - and Dell - Cause for Optimism November 20, 2009
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was all smiles at the company's shareholders meeting, as he touted the early success of Windows 7. Ballmer's cheer may have been contagious; after posting a massive earnings decline for the third quarter, Dell needed some good news to latch onto, and the prospect of broad enterprise adoption of Windows 7 could spur PC sales.
AA.com Sucks the Fun Out of Trip-Planning November 20, 2009
Using AA.com to book a flight was a painful experience. Densely packed, disorganized information was displayed in an unattractive format. On the plus side, it did seem as though the deals American Airlines advertised were real and not mere bait-and-switch lures. For anyone who wants a travel-planning Web site to inject a little pleasure into the experience, though, I say look elsewhere.
Salesforce.com Pumps Up Volume of Workplace Chatter November 19, 2009
Salesforce.com has developed a collaboration platform that puts social networking to work. Salesforce Chatter facilitates employee collaboration on projects through Facebook-like profiles, status updates, feeds and groups. The question remains whether employees will be as open to social networking in the workplace as they are in their personal lives.
Headline Feeds
Talkback: 
