

Blekko Launches Izik, A Tablet-Optimized Search App - answerly
http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/04/blekko-launches-izik

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orangethirty
You guys crack me up. This is a wonderful app. The bar has been raised. But, I
do have toput on my tinfoil hat. Why?

Izic = Issac.

And,

Nuuton = Newton.

Are you guys stalking me?I'm sure you are not. And this is something entirely
different from what I'm doing. But it would be neat because Ive never had a
stalker. ;)

Still, let me tell you that visual search is a trend that everyone should be
paying attention to. Touch devices are changing the way people browse the web.
Text links are being seen as less favorable than image links. Why? I think the
connection comes from the icons used to launch apps. People now sort of see
link images as icons instead of just images thta link somewhere. So, in the
future, you might see search becoming more about a lost of website icons with
a small description under it (if any).

Congrats to Chuck, Greg, and the gang at Blekko. This is very nice. You make
me want to learn Perl and apply.

~~~
greglindahl
Heh. We've owned izik.com for more than 2 years now, and we almost launched
with that name instead of blekko.

~~~
orangethirty
:) How does izic play in with rockzi? I suppose you plan on merging those two
in the future. It seems natural to integrate social interactions into search,
because that's what I'm doing in Nuuton (though differently from your
approach).

~~~
greglindahl
Right now:

* blekko.com is "10 blue links", desktop search, slashtags used to eliminate webspam

* rockzi.com is [/category /date], date sorted results for a category (slashtag), with an image-heavy UI, social voting, and user submissions

* izik.com is search for the tablet, image-heavy UI for ALL of the categories (slashtags) that we think may be relevant for a search.

All 3 build on the same underlying crawl and index dataset. Rockzi and izik
share UI elements.

~~~
orangethirty
I use roughly the same architecture. What I call the back-end (the crawling
system and index) are just an API. Then the front-end connects to it to fill
in the blanks. Though I don't know if you guys are doing logic in the front
end part, but I'm definitely am. The ranking/rating can be modified from user
input. Though this is abstracted and passes through various layers of security
to prevent gaming. My front end is currently Django, but I will have to move
to something faster if demands call for it. The back end is all custom stuff
using async libraries.

------
beagle3
Izik (pronounced "Itsik") is also a common Israeli nickname for "Yitzhak" (the
hebrew origin for the English name Isaac; literally meaning "will laugh", and
you can read the bible to figure out why).

But I guess you guys were going for "I seek"? (as in "ICQ" which was short for
"I seek you"?)

Anyway, congrats! Looks great!

~~~
McKittrick
the translation of laughter seems appropriate for a search app designed to be
playful and fun.

------
staunch
Someone leaked the names of their next few peoducts: Syzrup, Chkklo, Snopl,
Crkol, Pawpl

~~~
McKittrick
good one "staunch"

