This week’s poll is a companion to a thought-provoking post co-written by Emre Sokullu and Charles Knight. The post is a review of alt search engine Quintura, which differentiates itself with clustering technology. But there is a larger question: can search engines such as Quintura, that rely on UI innovation, really be competitive with Google?
Emre argues that the problem with relying on UI innovation is that the barrier to entry is too low. The big players Google (SearchMash) and Microsoft (Live) are actively experimenting with UI innovations, not to mention a number of other alt search engines (e.g. Snap). Meanwhile Charles says that “I do not believe that any of the Top 100 alternative search engines is a ‘Google Killer;’ but: they all are!”. He cites an Aesop fable about a lion and 4 oxen to back this theory up.
So what do you think? Take part in our poll below – and don’t forget to read Emre and Charles’ review of Quintura.
