Wink Technologies

Infobox_Company
company_name = Wink Technologies, Inc.
company_
company_type = Private
foundation = Los Altos, California
August 19, 2004
location = Los Altos, California
industry = Internet

key_people = Michael Tanne, Founder | products = Wink social search, Wink people search
revenue =
homepage = [http://wink.com/ wink.com]

Wink is a community-based social search engine. It provides people search across social networks, and Web search based on user input. Wink is different from conventional search engines in that the relevant results are derived not just from machine algorithms, but directly from user input, such as social bookmarking, voting up or down, or blocking results that are considered to be spam, thus allowing users to collectively create their own search engine. Wink released an early beta of the service on December 22, 2005 and formally launched Wink beta 2 on September 6, 2006. Wink was recognized by Business 2.0 "New Ideas in Search (Wink, Gravee)" (from Business 2.0), Schonfeld, Erick, December 26, 2005, The Next Net web: [http://blogs.business2.com/business2blog/2005/12/new_ideas_in_se.html Business 2.0] .] as an innovator in social search.

Functionality

Wink users can search across Web sites submitted by fellow users and gathered through analysis of bookmarks and/or tags from other social services including Digg, Slashdot, Furl, Yahoo MyWeb, and others. Users can bookmark results as personal favorites, add tags that relate to the site, or vote for or against each result with a thumb up or a thumb down respectively. Wink results are added on to search results from Google to give users a full search experiencee in one place.

Wink Collections are a social tool that allow users to organize links and items such as online video, audio, and images from around the Web that apply to a given subject. For example a Wink collection about funny ads contains links to commercials found by users across the Web regardless of whether the text search "funny ad" would have found them. Likewise, a collection about Hybrid Cars contains links to various resources concerning hybrid vehicles such as comparisons, merchants, tax information, reviews, photos, etc. in one list, even though these resources would not likely surface in the same search engine query. Users of a collection can rate links up or down within the collection using thumbs up or thumbs down, and can add their own links to the collection.

Wink People Search allows users to search for people across social networks including MySpace, LinkedIn, Bebo, Friendster and others. "Wink Social Search, now with people search" (from Pandia), Per M. Koch, November 21, 2006: [http://www.pandia.com/sew/321-wink.html Pandia: Wink Social Search, now with people search] .] Wink people search allows users to search by name, and also by interest, location, and other information published in users profiles. Wink people search allows users to find others who have similar interests and find out what social network they can be found on. It has been suggested that the profiles for a given individual on different services be combined, but the company has chosen to leave this to users by giving them a way to list the social networks they wish to claim.

Wink Topic Pages are topical pages for given subjects containing Web sites tagged with that subject and users who have claimed an interest in that subject. Wink topics bring together the people search with the social search providing a way for communities to form around given topics.

Significance

Wink has only been formally available for a short period and has not acquired a large following to date, however the capabilities demonstrated by the company are in an area, social search that is receiving attention as a potentially important development in web search. "Crowd Wisdom vs. Google's Genius" (from BusinessWeek.com), Holahan, Catherine, December 27, 2006: [http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/dec2006/tc20061227_722820.htm BusinessWeek.com] .]

History

Wink was incorporated on August 19, 2004 to work on ways to apply user input to improve the way that Web search is done. has developed unique techniques in information retrieval and search engine architecture designed to improve search results based on input from users. Wink’s PeopleRank technology analyzes which pages people like or don’t like to determine relevant results. Wink's development team includes developers from Inktomi, Yahoo, Google, and Excite.

On December 22 2005 the company released the first beta of its social search service.

On September 6 2006 the company released the second beta of its service, adding Wink collections.

On November 10 2006 the company released 'Wink People Search' which provides search across multiple social networks such as MySpace, Bebo, Friendster and LinkedIn "Wink Now Searches MySpace, LinkedIn and Bebo" (from TechCrunch), Kirkpatrick, Marshall, November 10, 2006: [http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/11/10/wink-now-searches-myspace-linkedin-and-beebo/ TechCrunch] .] .

On March 19 2007 it was reported that the company would focus completely on people search and that it was repurchasing some shares from existing investors. "Wink Pulls Half An Odeo, Partially Liquidates" (from TechCrunch), Arrington, Michael, March 19, 2007: [http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/03/19/wink-pulls-half-an-odeo-partially-liquidates/ TechCrunch] .]

On April 30 2007 Reunion.com announced an agreement with Wink to provide Wink's people profiles to Reunion's members and affiliates. "Reunion, Wink Partner Up" (from Mashable), Nicole, Kristen, April 30, 2007: [http://mashable.com/2007/04/30/reunion-wink/ Mashable] ]

Additional Information

Wink investors include PayPal veterans Reid Hoffman and Peter Thiel.

References

External links

* [http://wink.com Wink]

Additional Resources:
* [http://mashable.com/2007/06/01/10-people-powered-search-engines/ Mahalo and Friends: 10 People Powered Search Engines]
* [http://blog.adglobe.net/2006/11/30/wink-people-powered-search-for-myspace-linkedin-and-bebo/ Wink - People-Powered Search for MySpace, LinkedIn and Bebo]
* [http://mashable.com/2006/11/10/wink-launches-social-network-search-for-myspace-bebo-linkedin/ Wink Launches Social Network Search for MySpace, Bebo, LinkedIn]