Blekko Launches Early - Tells All (Update)

There's already been a lot written about the new search engine, Blekko, but up until a few hours ago, you needed an invite to try it out.

Unlike the days when I had a lot more time on my hands, I didn't have an invite or request one, but after watching the buzz on Twitter tonight, I decided to give it a spin.

While Google and others might be data-mining, Blekko is giving a lot of it away.


First, I wandered around the search engine a bit.  It didn't take me long to find co-founder Mike Markson and wish him luck.  It was obvious that Mike was not only monitoring the launch and adding content, but in Googley-style, he was actively interacting with users:

Blekko seemed, at first blush, to be all about content curation and I subscribed to a bunch of topics (Yes, I was creating a profile but if 1000+ companies don't already have that on me, I'd be surprised).

Robert Scoble, Danny Sullivan and others appeared on my Blekko front page, before signing up.  It was soon apparent why Sullivan was there.

Well, I suppose he should be.  Danny has probably been following search engines for more years than anyone on the planet but there's more.

I searched for this blog and found a few choices under the result:

Clicking the SEO link, I was presented with a fairly accurate group of SEO tools and graphs.

(click to enlarge)

I remember the first time this blog was featured on Techmeme.  I was humbled, even a little excited .... but I always wondered how many times it had been mentioned.  According to Bekko? Well .....

While I only remember 2 or 3 headlines (that's where the Techmeme traffic comes from folks :), it was refreshing to see the premier Tech aggregator had picked up 363 stories from here in the discussion links.

Almost enough to get me writing more often again .... almost.

There's A LOT more to explore in Blekko, not only for your own sites, but for others as well.

While much of this information is readily available using other tools, both free and pay-for, Blekko is a gold mine for advertisers, SEO's and many, many others .....

..... and the search works too!

We'll see how all this goes .... but for now, Kudos to Markson and company on a fascinating launch ...

and I guess, while I'm at it, Thanks to Gabe Rivera and the gang at Techmeme for the recognition.

Shows how often I look at my own analytics :)

Update: Responding to a few chat comments, I think Blekko may find a place in the market with it's toolset as it grows .... and improves.  So far, I completely agree with most others that, for now, it's NOT a Google killer.  It's different and it remains to be seen how many people become editors (ala Mahalo?) and/or create new slash tags. 

Here's a few more takes:

Search Engine Land (Danny Sullivan)

The New York Times (Claire Cain Miller)

Good week you guys

Charlie