John,

Can you elaborate on what it means to "roll your own search?"

Thanks,
Preston

• Posted by: Preston Wily
• September 28, 2005 8:54 AM

Yes, please do elaborate, John. "Rollyo" seems to be yet-another-independent-search-tool hoping for the jackpot with an acquisition by Ask.com, Google, MSN, or Yahoo! but not something I'd actually use. I hate to say it and be a pessimist here, but this not all that useful (if it's useful at all) and I don't see them becoming successful.

Ciao,
Doug

• Posted by: Doug Mehus
• September 28, 2005 9:33 AM

I disagree. If there were an easy way to plug this into a browser so that everytime you come across a page you like it could be added with a simple click to your "roll" I think people would use it.

I think this would make sense for MSN. Plug it into explorer. Use their own search technology. You can search any set of web sites. Say for example a folder in your favorites? I am just spitballing ideas here. Maybe then other MSN search results come up below your tailored results...I hope there is still room for ads :)

• Posted by: Joe
• September 28, 2005 9:48 AM

From what I can tell, this looks so much like Simpy's Topics feature (and that's really just one small feature), which lets you subscribe to others' "link + tag stream", group multiple subscriptions in the same topic, create any number of topics, create any number of filters over those topics, people, their links and tags, search it with full-text, etc. Similar, no?
You can try it with the demo/demo account.

• Posted by: Otis Gospodnetic
• September 28, 2005 11:48 AM

If you like this you might also want to try out Gigablast's Custom Topic Search technology which was launched long before rollyo. It is more powerful, but more demanding technically (and is protected by patent). http://www.gigablast.com/cts.html.

• Posted by: anonymous
• September 28, 2005 10:09 PM

Rollyo has a nice look but it's an old'ish concept. We were doing this back in 2001 -- we even used the term "roll your own SearchSets" with sharing of SearchSets. We learned a lot -- we'll see how Rollyo does now that timing seems better. Here is what Chris Sherman from SearchEngineWatch said about us back in July, 2001:
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/2157281

• Posted by: Tom Holt
• September 29, 2005 9:29 AM

The only reason you would use a service like this is if a web-wide search on Google has very low precision, i.e, too many bad results.

The problem with services like these (JetPacks included), is that they have poor recall, i.e., there could be a relevant article that would interest you but you did not add it to your roll, pack, etc.

This all can be handled with good web-wide search.

And I agree with Doug: Rollyo, JetPack, Simpy are all easily replicated features of search engines, not independent companies. Google could code this in a day. Yahoo and MSN, two at most. Only fools would acquire such nonsense.

• Posted by: Bud
• September 29, 2005 10:13 AM

what's their business model?

• Posted by: dextre
• September 29, 2005 10:15 AM

Wow. Who wasted money on this?

• Posted by: Patrick Barnes
• September 29, 2005 11:31 PM

>> "Rollyo" seems to be yet-another-independent-search-tool hoping for the jackpot with an acquisition by Ask.com, Google, MSN, or Yahoo! but not something I'd actually use.

Spot on :) ,I am really sick of all this Web 2.0 hype. Until this day i didnt see one web 2.0 site which became mass accepted except for myspace.com.

Its seems web 2.0 is nothing but geeks smooking their own pot !

• Posted by: Gsoft
• September 30, 2005 11:55 AM

As long as you don't accuse us of being the types who alway end up smoking other people's pot...

• Posted by: dave pell
• October 1, 2005 1:43 PM

Great discussion here. This has been one of the greatest, most intellectually-stimulating (and yet short and sweet) blog threads I've read to date. Great written work everybody! :)

Ciao,
Doug

• Posted by: Doug Mehus
• October 1, 2005 9:45 PM

what's their business model?

• Posted by: forum
• October 24, 2005 3:20 PM

Wow this is a good find for today. They just introduced the gmail invite/ orkut invite concept into search engines... may be this will be an add on to this concept and basically someone can create a web shop where people can buy clean lists with someone who pruned a list of websites which deliver content daily. Else a an ad supported version where the list contains a small list of sponsored websites in the list ( highly relevant). Finally there is some answer to the search spam...looks like

• Posted by: Online Dictionary
• November 7, 2005 11:19 PM

I also oneself something would want to find out on this theme. Very attentively I will read every post.

• Posted by: telewizory lcd
• January 11, 2006 5:00 PM

When I am using gigablast I am having a feeling as if it was a catalogue dmoz not a search engine, results are terrible.

• Posted by: Bielizna Damska
• February 22, 2006 9:02 AM

So it's fun to note that John.

• Posted by: gosia
• August 31, 2007 10:44 AM