Wikia Search Previews Monday

2008 is off to an auspicious start: Jimmy Wales will preview Wikia, the new social, community-driven search engine, on Monday. According to CNET, the Wikia search engine has been conceived in a true Web 2.0 environment, with full transparency and openness to feedback, powered by open-source algorithms. Users will contribute ranking suggestions and be allowed to edit search results.

"The desire to collaborate and support a transparent and open platform for search is clearly deeply exciting to both open source and businesses," Wales said in a statement in July. "Look for other exciting announcements in the coming months as we collectively work to free the judgment of information from invisible rules inside an algorithmic black box."

(Yes...that was a dig to Google, Yahoo! and others who keep their algorithms guarded by Ninjas and heavily armed militia.)

I can't wait to see the previews - or how Wikia shakes up SEM as we know it.