Blekko.com is slashing the way you search the web -- and what gets delivered to you. At least, they're hoping you'll take some time and help them customize your results: "slash in the sites you like and slash out the ones you don't."
After six months in beta, 2.5 years of work and $20,000,000, they've fully launched this morning, according to SubmitNews.com. They've crafted a video to walk users through the slash-tagging process. While it's a low bar, indeed, it's not as low as just typing in a keyword and sifting through the results, like in Google or Bing.
The hope is that users want to hone their results and minimize the noise on the return page.
Changing online behavior has proven to be almost as hard as changing personal behavior. Ossie Davis put it best in Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing" when he said, "You askin' a lot, doctor, for a man to change..."
And with search engines, it's even tougher. The word "Google" has become a verb, if not all other parts of speech. It's defaulted on most browsers around the world. Bing is giving it a go -- and it has value -- but it also has megabucks Microsoft backing it with ad buys and product awareness.
The Redwood City company, Blekko, also has a search 'bill of rights' and some use cases that show how the site can work -- and work specifically for you.
The other behavior that may not change is Google's habit of buying search-feature competitors in its space. Time will tell...
