Jimmy Wales, the one-time options trader who created Wikipedia, is rumoured to be teaming with Amazon to launch a new open-source search engine in Q107. Allegedly called Wikiasari, it is destined (according to Forbes) to out-Google Google.
Much of that information is wrong.
Wales told Search Engine Land's Danny Sullivan that the news broke, because of "me and my big mouth." Apparently, James Doran, the Times reporter who broke the story asked Wales "if he ever thought about search." And, because it had been on Wales' mind for some time, he shared his thoughts. This, of course, set hares running all over the Christmas period.
Here's what's actually going on: Wales, through his wiki communities company Wikia, Inc., has embarked on a people-powered search project which will rely on existing projects Nutch and Lucene for its background infrastructure. Apart from some second-round financing in the company, Amazon is not involved in this project.
Wales believes that a trusting community will gather around the search software, refining its capabilities and dealing with ambiguities, just as happened with Wikipedia. The difference this time around is that Wikia is a commercial organisation and he's going to have to address the "why should we?" question that potential participants will be asking themselves.
Wales is driven by the idea of transparency: that algorithms and methods be clearly explained, rather than being secret processes which could lead to suspicions of deliberate bias.
You can keep yourself informed of progress by signing up to the Search Wikia wiki. Wales thinks that a launch, if it happens, is a year or two away.
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