Collecta, the real-time search startup we reviewed in May and again in June, is releasing their API today and announcing that the developer of the best application will receive a MacBook Pro.
“The API is really simple to integrate,” said Collecta CEO Gerry Campbell in a phone conversation yesterday. “It works very similar to the Twitter search API. We enourage that as a standard and wanted to make sure developers could easily pick it up and use it.”
Campbell had an interesting take on Collecta’s approach to the ever-more crowded real-time search space.
“Our focus is real web search,” he said, “not just the social web. We’re looking across the web everywhere to find timely items.”
And while other real-time search engines, such as OneRiot, have PageRank-eqsue algorithms involving backlinks and user influence to determine search results, Collecta’s results are ranked solely on timeliness.
“We believe really strongly in relevance. We’re just going about it in a different way. If you want to offer real-time search, you have to be true to the timeline. We give you not the summary of the story, but the story as it unfolds.”
Campbell said this type of result is good for searches on entities and events, and he and the rest of the Collecta team feel the API could be put to great use in weather or fantasy sports applications.
“We think publishers will find this very interesting to use for evergreen or static stories as a widget or sidebar,” he continued.
API calls are limited to 5,000 per hour for developers who have not established a relationship with the company, and Collecta does plan to charge for high-level API usage as part of their revenue model.
The company was funded by True Ventures to the tune of $1.85 million and is still figuring out how the product will be monetized.
“Obviously, we’re building a business here” said Campbell.”‘I ran search at AOL… I’m pretty well-versed in search-related business models.”
Although he noted that the startup is “still getting all the players on the field,” Campbell did reveal that the basis for Collecta’s business strategy will be offering creative solutions to brands and advertisers. “The reason I love search is because it’s the number one place where user value and advertiser value are completely aligned. When users are coming and looking to buy something, I expect there to be those opportunities in this kind of search, as well.”
