Search with a Human Touch

Could flesh-and-blood human beings do a better job in online search than the algorithms and bots that power the search engines of Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft’s (MSFT) MSN? iRazoo, a privately held start-up that is touting its “social search” features is hoping so.

iRazoo, which launched its new site Monday, is putting a unique twist on search engine results. Sure, the site has your standard searches ranked by keyword relevance, as well as sponsored links. But Neal Verma, the founder and CEO of iRazoo, said that his site is unique because the top-ranked searches will be based on user recommendations.

Verma also hopes to set his site apart by offering users a simple way to unregister so that their personal information is not stored in cookies.

Verma concedes that in the beginning, the site won’t be that much different from other search sites, since it will take some time for a critical mass of user recommendations to make their way into the company’s database. But Verma is hoping to get people interested in coming to the site by offering them the promise of prizes.

It is an intriguing concept but iRazoo will face an uphill battle. Both Yahoo and Google are investing in their own social search capabilities and the whole concept of search with a human, personalized touch is not new. About.com, now owned by the New York Times (NYT) offers human “guides” to help give people expert advice on various topics.

Another privately held search firm, Eurekster, tried a couple of years ago to revolutionize search with a service that let users see results that were recommended by friends in a social network. The concept of giving away prizes in order to boost search traffic also has been tried before by companies like Blingo and Winzy.

None of these sites have been able to break the stranglehold on search that the oligopoly of Google, Yahoo and MSN have. Can iRazoo succeed where they failed?

Verma said it will all come down to how strong iRazoo’s search results are. And he is confident that the concept of social search will catch on since social networking and user-generated sites are already popular.

“This is the second revolution of search. We’re taking computer-driven algorithmic results and mixing that in with human intelligence. The success of MySpace, Facebook, Digg and Wikipedia shows that people want to take content that’s already there and make it better,” he said. “Google has lost its way by focusing on its ad engine. They have been focusing so much on making the ad model perfect but their search results have suffered.”

Source: CNNMoney