Kyle
Google is the goto search for most of the people out there on the internet. Sure there is Bing and Yahoo (powered by Bing) that we use occasionally but we tend to default to Google. However, we’ve all noticed as Google grows bigger and bigger, and now especially after the implementation of Google+ in the search results, searching isn’t as accurate as it used to be.
Couple the accuracy issue with privacy concerns, and you may be looking for a new search engine. Privacy is a growing concern for many. While there is a novelty in searching for something and seeing like ads on the side bar, sometimes the ads get in the way and feel downright stalkerish.
All of those reasons are why San Luis Obispo, CA based company Visual Purple is bringing their Gooey Search product to market. GooeySearch is an app that compliments your Google experience. We got a chance to talk with GooeySearch for an interview here it is:
What is Gooey Search and Visual Purple
“Like most people, Google is our go-to search engine and we love the iPad.” Heinbockel says, “With the exception of PageRank, search has changed little compared to other technologies over the years and has yet to successfully venture beyond 10 blue links. That inspired us to optimize for the iPad our proven, professional-grade search technology for analysts and researchers, GisterPRO. Gooey makes search fun and brings a new dimension of accuracy, privacy, anonymity and content transparency to Google searches. We have set out to make an app for the iPad that will allow you to interact and explore Google results like never before.” The search app is slated to launch December 2012, pending full funding from Kickstarter supporters.
David Ostby and Ed Heinbockel were founding figures when Visual Purple. The Company has enjoyed being an industry leader in intelligent training simulations and technologies throughout the Virtual World, Embedded and Decision-Based training sectors. In 2011, Visual Purple publicly introduced GisterPRO, a Cloud-Powered Exploratory Search Tool that delivers precision, high-quality search results while often revealing unanticipated yet highly insightful concepts and relationships. The tool has been in continuous use since Fall 2010.
More after the break
Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?
Ed Heinbockel is the founder of Visual Purple, however it is David Ostby and Ed Heinbockel that are putting the Gooey Search project together.
David Ostby and Ed Heinbockel have been building award-winning PC and serious games for years: from Sierra On-Line and Tsunami Media, to Visual Purple. Gooey Search marks a welcome return to their roots: engaging consumer apps. They couldn’t be more excited to bring professional-grade search technology to the rest of us!
David is a software systems designer, programmer and inventor. In the 80’s, David developed the PC implementation of the Pick DB, Revelation. He’s built technologies for PC games and serious business simulations. Since 1998, he has been instrumental in the creation of the core simulation software engine and modeling technologies powering many intelligent training simulations. He is the inventor of a software technique for assessing an individual’s task-processing style and more recently lead an extensive study into the mathematics of language that resulted in the algorithms behind Gooey. When not being the resident Geek, David enjoys working on higher dimensional analysis, experimental mathematics and 3D printing…but not at the same time.
Ed is not a geek. Ed is not a geek. Ed keeps repeating this to himself, but not even he believes it. Ed works the more squishy side of new technology development: making cool technologies be of real value to the user. He’s been doing this successfully for more than twenty-five years. He enjoys building disruptive technologies and in his spare time closely follows space exploration and is a fanatic about new physics and nano tech.
Where are you based?
San Luis Obispo, CA USA
What is the problem that Gooey Search solves
Gooey Search seeks to bring a creative element to Google search by allowing users of the app to rack and stack the search results. In addition it provides only the best Google search results (so no SPAM!) as well as complete anonymity and privacy when conducting searches.
How important an issue is this, can you us some examples of how we would benefit from using Gooey Search
Privacy is an issue to most, in March 2012 Google changed its privacy policy which left many users looking over their shoulders wondering what is being tracked. Also, when conducting a Google search most users have to go pages in to the search results to find a relevant search return that matches what they are looking for. Gooey Search is able to read each search result returned by Google and only provide the best and closest matching search results. Saving the user of the app valuable time.
Who is the target user
Anybody that uses Google, and we are trying to build the app in a straightforward enough way so that even a kid would enjoy using it.
How big is your user base, what is your plan to build scale?
User base is a huge- Anybody that has an iPad and likes to conduct internet searches using Google
Are you bootstrapping it?
We are using Kickstarter (a crowdfunding platform) to get the project off the ground.
What is one lesson you’ve learned in developing Gooeysearch
The way that we search the internet has not changed over the years- all search engines display the same basic look within the 10 results on the pages. Gooey Search is setting out to change that and make search interactive and fun for all ages!
Linkage:
Check out the GooeySearch Kickstarter page
Check out the GooeySearch website
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