Almost two years ago, one of our engineers was interested in buying a plasma TV and tried using web search to find a good site for reviews --- a quick search revealed that there were hundreds of sites offering to educate him on plasma TVs, yet short of visiting all the sites, it was difficult to figure out which site exactly was the 'best' site. So he did what millions of people do every day – asked a friend, who recommended two excellent sites for plasma TV reviews. He never ended up buying a TV (things just got too busy with search), but this was the moment of inspiration that lead us to build the product we are introducing today – a social search engine that enables people to search the expertise of their friends and community.

And if Industrial Memetics were better positioned, it would get swept up in the next generation of search technology (social search). It provides the thing (reputation matching) that Generation 1 of Social Search won't have. I don't trust my immediate friend circle for anything other than specific bits as much as a robust reputation network.

Yahoo! Search blog: Search, with a little help from your friends