Should Google and Bing Be Afraid Of Blekko?
By Anna Johnson on March 8th, 2011Maybe Google and Bing have nothing to fear from startup search engine, Blekko. After all, according to comScore, Google handled 11.1 billion searches in January 2011, while Bing handled 2.2 billion, and Blekko handled just 30 million.
On the other hand, that 30 million searches is pretty impressive, considering Blekko only launched in November 2010. Since then, Blekko users have created more than 110,000 slashtags (curated topics) and the site is differentiating itself – and attracting users – by taking a stand on ‘content farms’. The company has announced that it won’t display links to ‘content farms’ such as eHow and AnswerBag.
According to Blekko chief executive, Rich Skrenta, the company plans to build on such innovations as the ability to search according to customized slashtags, date, website type and Facebook ‘Likes’, and the introduction of a mobile version.
Blekko also has a decent level of funding in the bag, having launched with $24.4 million from well-known Silicon Valley investors including Marc Andreessen, Ron Conway and Jeff Clavier.
It remains to be seen if Blekko can make much of a dent in the search engine universe. In the meantime, however, it certainly offers an alternative – and possibly a more satisfying alternative – to Google and Bing.
