The latest search engine, WikiSeek, may actually have a chance to take some small amount of share from Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, AOL, and Ask.com. The product searches data from the gigantic Wikipedia database. Wikipediea is one of the largest websites in the world, often ranking in the top 15 sites in terms of visitors.
The edge the new search site may have is that it also searches data from all websites referenced at Wikipedia, which could easily stretch into the million.
The site was built by development company SearchMe which claims that "providing suggested search refinements based on user tagging and categorization within Wikipedia, making results more relevant than conventional search engines"
The search space is fiercely competitive, and the smaller players which include Microsoft (MSFT), AOL (TWX) and Ask,com (IACI) are already losing share to Yahoo! (YHOO)and Google (GOOG)
If a new player could take even 2% or 3% of the market, it could disrupt the businesses for several web portals.
Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at [email protected]. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.