SearchMe: The Search Engine That Never Was

SearchMe, the visual search engine which currently is redirecting to Google, due to lack of funds and no buyer insight is essentially the search engine that never was.  Granted, there are a lot of search engines out there that really never take off, SearchMe is an interesting example to look at.  As I talked about in a previous post, “Open Letter: Attention All Search Engine Startups” I eluded to the fact that SearchMe was indeed failing even with all of the venture capital that these venture firms put towards it ($43.6 Million to be exact).

The problem with SearchMe is two-fold, first, it didn’t have enough money to get the word out, and second, even if it was able to get the word out, it really was never an efficient search engine.  If anything, it was an interesting concept with a decent monetization model.  While the visual search engine is a interesting concept, the change is still far too great from traditional user experience that it would confuse and turn off many users.

The other major issue is branding, which again, goes back to the amount of money they can throw at advertising to gain awareness and public trust.  If you were to throw a Google logo on any set of search results – Google’s or not, it automatically has the best perception.  This is another topic I’ve discussed in the past on why people use Google.

SearchMe, in my opinion, is one of those web services you try out for a while and then dump and go back to your traditional/usual service.  There has to be a reason behind it – people like what is familiar to them.  Which is why I’m stressing the point that even if SearchMe was able to stay up and running indefinitely, the chances they would ever catch on without a huge ad campaign, similar to that of Microsoft’s $100 million dollar Bing campaign are slim to none.  The style of search SearchMe provided is just too different (or even perhaps ahead of its time) that it really never had a chance to compete.

While we need an improved way to search and find information, I do not think a complete visual search engine is the answer.  After all, we still need to solve the problem of video, image, and audio search because there is currently nothing that can do it effectively.