Confirmed: Wikia Search starts on Monday

The Wikia Search project, called “the Google Killer”, will soon be available in alpha mode. Jimmy Wales wrote about this in the Wikia Search newsletter. In his letter of December 24, it is stated that on Monday ( From the author. It’s not quite clear which, but apparently already on January 7th. ) The first public preview version of the new search engine will be available.

Wikia Search relies on the ability of users to determine the level of importance of web pages; the system will also allow users to edit search results, like Mahalo .

Obviously, the Wikia search engine was merged with another search project, Grub, acquired by Wikia Search in July 2006. Grub uses the distributed computing power of volunteer users to index web pages.

Jimmy Wales, well-known as one of the founders of Wikipedia, has high hopes that the Wikia Search project will crush other search engines. But at the same time he has the care not to say out loud the name Google.
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Nevertheless, it seems to me that it will be easy enough at first glance to determine whether the system seen is sufficiently attractive to become one of the leading players in the search engine market or is it prepared for a convenient auxiliary tool like Wikipedia or Mahao (or, even worse, place in a series of useless systems).

[via CNet ]