After seeing how hard it is to combat the goliath that is Google when it comes to search, you almost have to wonder about anyone launching an alternative search engine these days. Are they crazy? Overly ambitious? Probably a little of both. The latest attempt to snag a little search market share comes from Lavva, a company with big ideas about social search. Instead of retrieving sites based on a search algorithm like Google does, Lavva bases its search results on what people say are the top results. According to the company, this makes search "100% democratic." After a few test searches of our own, we can only say this: there's a reason why Google is king. Algorithms work.
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The "Social Algorithm"
In theory, the idealism which infuses Lavva sounds like a good idea. "Search powered by the people," "results based on quality, not SEO," "transparency," etc. are the types of things Lavva likes to rave about when discussing their social algorithm. In practice, however, social search like this doesn't work. Obviously, it doesn't help Lavva's case that very few