Presearch Completes Crowd Sale,
Launches Community-Driven Search Engine
That Pays Users In Cryptocurrency
November 30th, 2017 - In the face of unprecedented centralization of information and economic control, with Google accounting for more than 90% of the search market, Presearch.org has released its beta search engine to decentralize search and enable users to earn cryptocurrency in the process.
After a successful token crowd sale that resulted in more than $16 million in revenue, Presearch is well-positioned to build the next-generation search engine the world has been asking for.
The beta version of Presearch focuses on providing members with an easy way to search different providers, including Google, Amazon, DuckDuckGo and others through a single search field. Users are rewarded with Presearch PRE Tokens that they can redeem for advertising on the site, merchandise or other tokens such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Feedback from the first 400 beta testers has been very positive, and more than 2,000 testers are on the waiting list. Those who utilize the site during beta are able to earn up to 8 tokens per day during the testing phase, more than when the platform opens up to the public in 2018.
With more than 50 search channels available, Presearch is working on upgrades to the platform that will enable everyone to set their default providers and create collections of different search engines.
The vision is to create a platform that enables various constituents in the community to participate in the creation and ongoing maintenance of the search engine through an open source framework that will allow anyone to audit the code and ensure the platform is being operated in a fair and transparent way.
For example, teams of data scientists could create competing algorithms, with the one users like best receiving more traffic and revenue. Similarly, subject matter experts will be able to create curated collections of information that will supplement the core index, and user experience experts will be able to create new interfaces for accessing the results. Those that test well with users will receive more traffic and share in more of the token rewards.
As far as infrastructure goes, Presearch is building proofs of concept that utilize IPFS for distributed hosting of information, and is experimenting with browser extensions that enable users to crawl and index the web and be rewarded in Presearch Tokens for their work.
One of the most exciting concepts the Presearch team is building is an active personalization layer that enables users to tailor their results based on their personal preferences. For instance, if a user specified that they adhere to a special diet such as Paleo, vegan or gluten-free, a search for recipes or restaurants would return those that match their preferences. The same could be done for those who prefer to shop locally; results would return local businesses instead of national chains.
Preferences and personal data would be stored in a blockchain that the user would control entirely. Blockchain technology to verify users will also assist in preventing fraud and smart contracts will handle the splitting of advertiser revenue between users and the project.
These are just some of the ways that Presearch plans to improve upon search results, but the core difference is that it is entirely community-driven; more like Wikipedia than Google, with a belief that active human curation and participation is a necessity for the project to succeed.
Members are encouraged to participate in decisions, provide feedback on the platform and contribute in any way they can. Just days after launch, a browser extension that enables Chrome users to search Presearch directly was developed by a community member who didn’t want to wait for the planned official version later this year.
“We are thrilled with the early reception to the beta and the level of excitement within the community of early adopters. We have people using the site every day, developing add-ons and even painting their faces with the Presearch logo on it. It’s amazing to be a part of it, and it’s great that we can reward these Members for helping to improve the platform and spread the word with PRE tokens” said Colin Pape, founder of Presearch.
It is a long-term project to build a decentralized search engine, but there is tremendous excitement within the decentralization world to build a new access point to the internet, including the dark web, that is transparent and a ground up, grassroots movement instead of a top-down monopoly.
Already the project has attracted significant interest, with Presearch generating more than $16MM in token sale revenue and landing leaders in the search space on its advisory team such as Rich Skrenta, a co-founder of the Open Directory Project (DMOZ) and Trey Grainger, who wrote the #1 book on Solr, the open source search technology that powers the majority of the Fortune 100.
It remains to be seen whether the Presearch project will make a dent in Google’s dominance of the 100 billion dollar search market, but if it does, the benefits could be tremendous.
The team believes that it’s about time the world had an open source search engine it could rely on to do what’s best for the community as a whole and not just one company with increasing conflicts of interest as it becomes dominant across all facets of the internet; email, maps, video, documents, storage, mobile operating systems, TV, and web browsers.
To launch the effort, the Presearch beta doesn’t take on Goliath head-on, instead it leverages it by making Google the default search engine in its multi-search interface.
“After battling Google head on in 2011 when they blocked access to our ShopCity.com network, we realized that going head-to-head was not a viable strategy. We barely escaped that encounter with them due to an ongoing antitrust investigation that shed some extra light on our situation. This time, we are taking a more strategic approach” said Pape.
“Some people may find it strange that we are defaulting to Google out of the gate, but we truly understand the market power they have, and just how hard it is to change user behavior, so we’re doing everything we can to make it as painless as possible to switch to Presearch” Pape continued.
It’s a novel approach that ensures a good user experience that leads to repeat usage right from the start. As long as users know this is just the starting point, they may not mind using Presearch to challenge Google from the inside out, and will create an entirely new search paradigm in the process.
To register for the Presearch beta, visit
www.presearch.org.
Those interested in contributing to the project can also visit
www.presearch.io.
