 | |
| Company type | Search engine |
|---|---|
| Industry | Internet |
| Founded | California, US |
| Headquarters | , US |
Key people | Randy Adams (CEO) |
| Products | Search |
| Website | www |
SearchMe was avisual search engine based inMountain View, California. It organized search results as snapshots of web pages — aninterface similar to that of theiPhone's andiTunes's album selection.[1][2]
In July 2009, the company lost funding and the search engine wentoffline.[3]
SearchMe was founded in March 2005 by Randy Adams and John Holland.[4][5] Adams was inspired to start this search engine when his 5-year-old son was having difficulty reading. He hoped to create a search engine that "would improve the experience of finding information online".[5]Sequoia Capital spent millions of dollars to fund SearchMe during the website's opening years.[5]
In March 2008, the site was launched inbeta status. In April 2008, the company launched its search engine on the Internet.[6]
The company had 1.8 million visitors in March 2009, but by May of the same year, the number of visitors decreased to 600,000.[7] On July 24, 2009, SearchMe wentoffline due to financial troubles, such as maintaining theservers.[8]
Of its 45 employees, SearchMe announced in July 2009 it planned to dismiss 35. The company attempted to concentrate on the market ofbroadband TV.[8]
As search queries were being made, SearchMe returned categories that were related to the topic. The search engine had Facebook and Twitter links so that the results could be shared.[9] The top of the screen displayed the screenshot, while the bottom revealed thehyperlink and a site's description. Moving the mouse from left to right made the screen "flip in the corresponding direction".[10]
SearchMe'stagline was "You'll know it when you see it."[11] As of March 2008, the website hadindexed one billion pages.[11]
It required about 3 million searches every day for the company to "break even".[6] The website received its revenue fromadvertisements. Advertisements were displayed through screenshots of the products or companies that were being promoted. Search results were ranked throughalgorithms and the number of views a website had received. Websites that were "visually appealing" were ranked higher than those that were not.[6]
SearchMe had been criticized for not providing the number of search results, causing users to not know whether they were perusing through 10 results or 1000 results.[11] Some of SearchMe's screenshots were difficult to read, causing users to decide whether a site is relevant based on its appearance.[12] However, the website highlighted the search queries for easier perusal of the screenshot.[13]
In 2007, SearchMe foundedWikiseek, which indexed Wikipedia pages and sites that were linked to from Wikipedia articles.[4]
In October 2008, SearchMe released amusic streaming service, which enables users to download an unlimited number of songs.[14] The service relied onImeem's collection of music.[15]