Early web search was guided by the opinions of experts. When we first wrote about Internet resources and how to find them (back in 1999 or so) I differentiated such resources as a directory in contrast to what I them described as a search engine. I must confess that I had to look in a book from that era to remember my example – it was Yahoo! (the updated remnants may be found at Yahoo! Directory). The search engines gained favor because an automated approach was the only way to keep up and the system for ranking the “hits” (e.g., page rank) seemed to generate output pages that users found useful.
Perhaps our preference follow some type of nonlinear relationship between acceptance and amount of information. As the amount of information available advances far beyond the capacity of anyone to personally examine, is it possible that human recommendations are again becoming valued? Isn’t this what Twitter is good for once you get past the vanity posts concerning where one is at and what one is doing?
SweetSearch is based on human research originally resulting in web guides from findingDulcinea (explanation of history can be found at findingDulcinea blog).
I like to see options in this space. I like the concept. Recently, I have decided it is wise to withhold an endorsement until I can understanding the business model. I see not ads accompanying search results. Too many services I thought were great have been bought out (up) or disappeared.