New Wikia interface enables search-results apps

Wikia Search has opened an interface that lets others build miniature applications within search results.

(Credit: CNET News)

Wikia Search has released an interface called Wikia Intelligent Search Extensions (WISE) that lets sites build their search results into custom-made applications.

WISE launched Wednesday with a number of partners offering sample "WISEapps," including AccuWeather, Digg, and The Washington Post, which built an application that can show its news articles directly within search results.

The technology is similar to Yahoo's SearchMonkey.

Incorporating the collaborative Wiki philosophy, Wikia Search lets people edit search results, including the order in which results appear. Google has begun a much narrower experiment that lets people move, add, and remove search results, but Wikia co-founder and Chairman Jimmy Wales wants to offer more.

"While others have announced they're simply 'experimenting' with allowing user input on search results, the Wikia Search project continues to seek ways to provide unmatched levels of input from users," Wales said in a statement. "Today we've taken another significant step in that direction and firmly believe anyone who uses our search tool will find the results better for it."

Personally, Wikia Search hasn't changed my search habits, though I occasionally try it to see what comes up. I tried a sample WISEapp module with mixed results: a Wikia search for "buffalo weather" successfully returned the AccuWeather forecast application--but for Buffalo, Iowa, which probably isn't the first city named Buffalo on most people's search priorities. Also, retrieving search results was fairly pokey, and Google has shown that snappy results are an essential part of the user experience.

[inachu]

You can't even publish a wiki about yourself without someone who has so much false clout on wikipedia to have your entire page trashed and deleted due to so called... NOT ENOUGH INFORMATION and so forth.

[mbenedict]

@inachu: Wikipedia isn't your vanity website. Publishing or editing an article about yourself is a big no-no on Wikipedia, not least due to conflict of interest rules. Sorry to bruise your ego, but if you're even mildly important or famous, people will create a Wikipedia entry about you; otherwise, go post a free blog somewhere.

[alexc218]

This idea exists already:

www.hi1search.com

Build an application and hook it up to the system. Good applications will earn money.

[peter29073]

Yea, Hi1 and SearchMonkey of course come to mind...I hear they need to approve each app individually - I wonder how that will scale...