SiliconBeat: iNods -- yet another (!) Silicon Valley search engine

"Niche" rules these days.

So iNods, based in San Jose, isn't only a search engine. It is a shopping engine. And it isn't only a shopping engine -- it gets narrower than that. It searches blogs and other content related to pre-shopping, or research.

You can call this a Web 2.0 company, and so as usual, TechCrunch's Michael Arrington has the scoop:

Like the others, iNods has realized that there is a massive amount of review information out there in the blogosphere. And more is being created every day. They are harvesting that information, making it searchable...

Wait, isn't this what Become.com has already been doing for a year now? They have a "research only" button. Here's our first post on Become.com. Or are we missing something?

Maybe the point is that iNods is searching more blogs, and Become.com is instead ranking brand-name review publishers higher when returning results. But Become.com seems to be searching blogs already, so we will have to play a bit more with iNods to see how different this really is.

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.siliconbeat.com/cgi-bin/mt331/mt-tb.cgi/1031

Links to blogs that reference this entry:

From: Search Engine Placement Company
Search Engine Placement Company
Excerpt: If SEO Analysis Potential customers are a guarantee that a call at 1.866.3484.SEO • Read articles about optimizin...
Tracked: February 21, 2006 6:38 PM

I sense there is a miniscule difference in focus: iNods finding and aggregating product reviews in blogs, while Become is more about shopping and deals.

At the same time, I share your dismay. But considering how many tagging/bookmarking sites are out there, and now calendar/GTD webapps, this is hardly surprising.

Jie Kang on January 12, 2006 11:58 PM
Comment link

Hi Matt:

I wanted to take a minute to point out a few differences which may help clarify our differentiation:

- We are focussed on delivering highly relevant review and advice content for shopping as well as other areas, though initial focus is on serving the pre-shopping research need
- We are different than Become.com as we do not crawl the entire web but a targeted one. You can try a few results to compare iNods and Become and you will see the difference. Become results relevance tends to diminish after the initial page or so. Also Become is more of a Froogle/comparison shopping competitor. We are only serving the research need. We will not be doing comparison shopping.
- We are searching review content sites as well as blogs without any preferential ranking

I would like to point out that what you are seeing is the earliest version and we will be rolling out new features over the next few months, all centered around helping consumers make faster and more educated buying decisions - supported by the community.

I hope this helps clarify some aspects. I really appreciate the feedback.

Vaibhav Domkundwar - iNods.com on January 13, 2006 9:52 AM
Comment link

It is certainly interesting to track developments of the vertical search space. In the case of blogs, the web has a tremendous amount of user-generated content that offer incredible insights and value. The real challenge is making sense of it and aggregating the quality content into a place and form that is user friendly.

To learn more about iNods and this vertical search space, check out our podcast with iNods founder Vaibhav Domkundwar here: http://www.minorityrapport.com/2006/02/aggregating_mak.html

Thanks,

Doug Sherrets

Doug Sherrets on February 8, 2006 10:05 PM
Comment link