Can we make search better?

One area that I'm very interested in is search. Web search has transformed our world in an amazing way over the last 10 years and there is no reason to think that it won't continue to have a strong impact going forward.

Currently I'm working on a vertical search engine called Embought, a price comparison search engine which I'll discuss in more detail in another post. When I made the decision to actively work on the search problem I decided that I should start small, and by confining the amount of the web that I need to crawl to online stores I've done just that.

There are tons of search startups out there, companies targeting both vertical search markets as well as broad web search but for the most part they are ignored by all but the most in-the-know. The general consensus is that 'you can't beat Google.' If Yahoo! and Microsoft can't beat Google on search than how can a few guys in a garage? I think that they will eventually be beaten in search, someone will come along and do it better than even the mighty Google. In fact it's likely that it will be a few guys in a garage who do it, because we need another huge leap in what it means to search the web and large companies don't usually make huge leaps.

There was an article today on ReadWriteWeb asking 'How Vulnerable is Google on Search?' and it has some very interesting insights into how Google is playing it safe and not really innovating in search. Maybe it's time for someone to come along and play David to the Googalith.

Ideas --> Code; What does it all mean?

I'm Brandon Pollet and this is my new blog, Ideas --> Code. The goal here is to capture some of the projects I'm working on and to hopefully post some interesting ideas as well as some useful code for other developers to expand on.

I'm an idea man, I have a new 'world changing' idea about every 20 minutes, and for me computers are a way to turn my ideas into reality. I currently have 3 mostly finished web applications up and running around the web and I'll talk about each of those in other posts as we move forward.

I plan to share my ideas and progress with you and to weigh in on happenings in the tech world. Hopefully we'll all enjoy the ride.