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Startup Gogimon has created a “search medium” to help refine results and offer an alternative to users terrified that search engines from Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are digesting their data.
Gogimon’s Internet Search Channel is a piece of software, with Microsoft Internet Explorer embedded, that users download on their desktops.
The application takes keywords from the search results processed by the leading search engines and matches it to the user’s interests (which it begins to learn over time). The idea is to produce tailored search results that are more in line with what the user is looking for.
Once users enter keywords into the Gogimon search bar, Internet Search Channel brings up 30 custom Gogimon search results culled from the top three search engines, as well as the option for users to review the original results from Google, Yahoo and Live Search.
This is usually the end of the line for Web searches. But a tool called Gogimon Mind Reader conducts a background analysis and search while the user is surfing the Web and provides the user with a customized list of additional suggestions that are most relevant to the currently reviewed page. Every time the user navigates to another page, Mind Reader generates 10 new suggestions.
The Check N Get feature provides in separate tabs a parallel download of the user’s preferred search results. Point N Search enables spontaneous search of any word, term or phrase users find. Favorable Search provides more targeted search within the user’s site favorites, history and RSS feeds.
The more a user employs Internet Search Channel the more familiar the app becomes with the user’s interests and search habits.
This leads to more refined results, Gogimon claims. Users can also save search results and return to them anytime, and initiate RSS feeds for any particular search phrase.
Such a tool would be a Web searcher’s worst nightmare if it was something Google, Yahoo and Microsoft did in return or spitting back search results. Major search engines do “remember” what you searched on last to offer suggestions, so the concept is similar.
Gogimon’s core difference, and the one that should allay some suspicions and fears, is that all personal user data is stored locally on the user’s computer, not in Google’s, Yahoo’s or Microsoft’s servers.
Gogimon is able to remove the user’s ID from the packets being sent (as a result of the query) to the search engines, making it impossible for these search engines to know who is making the search request.
I can think of quite a few privacy advocates who have wrung their hands in fear that search giants collect their data, so Gogimon Internet Search Channel might be worth a shot, especially because it’s free. Check out the company video on it here.
I asked Gogimon how the company plans to make money. The company said it will offer Internet Search Channel as something called Open Channel to large enterprises. Businesses will then distribute it to their customers, along with advertisements and special deals from the vendor.
Payment to Gogimon is conditional on end user customers clicking on a banner, opening a stream or making a purchase. The end user actions are detailed in payment schedules, which are part of the agreement with the enterprise customer
Gogimon will also offer Global Channel, so if a user is standardized on one vendor’s Open Channel, they can go to Global Channel and see all the other deals being offered by enterprises using Open Channel.
Open Channel has yet to be launched, but Gogimon told me it is in direct talks with several large enterprises.