Mark Evans

A Twist on Web Search

If the world needs yet another search engine, Zenome.com is hoping there's room for one with a bit of twist. Zenome, created by two Canadian professors, is trying to build a collaborative search engine where users submit Web sites based on their quality (however one determines it) - rather than the popularity formula used by Google. A key part of the process are external editors who focus on specific subjects and receive part of Zenome's advertising revenue. In some ways, it reminds me of the early days of Yahoo, which used in-house editors to build its Web site directory. Zenome just went into beta and obviously it's work in progress as off-the-cuff search requests for Conrad Black and Rupert Murdoch produced no results. Maybe Zenome will manage to successfully pull off what the Open Directory Project wasn't able to do but it looks more like an academic project than a viable search engine player.