Emily Chang - eHub Interviews

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eHub Interviews Wink

Thanks to Michael Tanne, creator of Wink for this email interview posted January 24, 2006.

eHub: What is your web application/service about?

Wink: Search the tagged Web.  Applying user intent - in the form of tags, rating, blocking, etc - to find relevant results when you want to know what other people think is most interesting for a given search.

eHub: Why did you start this project?

Wink: We started Wink in August 2004 with the goal of improving search results by integrating user feedback.  It’s evolved with the growth of tags, which in addition to blocking and rating results is a very valuable form of user feedback.

eHub: How much time do you devote to its growth?  Do you have a day job?

Wink: This is my day job (and night job, too :-)

eHub: How large is your team and what are your backgrounds?

Wink: We are up to about 10 people. I was a founder of AdForce which went public in 99 and was acquired by CMGi.  Before that I ran products at Verity. More recently I founded XDegrees, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2002 and have invested in or advise LinkedIn, Flock, Cloudmark, RealTravel, and SimplyHired. The other team members are from Inktomi, Yahoo, Epinions, SGI, NetFlix, Excite, and DemandTec.

eHub: What is your design philosophy?

Wink: Build well designed, scaleable systems, iterate quickly, reuse code.

eHub: What technologies are you currently using?

Wink: We make extensive use of open source tools such as MySQL, Apache, MediaWiki, PHP, OCAML, Javascript/AJAX as well as core code in C++. We have developed considerable proprietary technology as well, such as our patent pending TagRank technology.

eHub: If your project is live, what are the most requested features from your users/community?

Wink: We’re receiving great feedback.  The main request that we have is for some improved search capability, such as the inclusion of a news feed or stock quotes.  We also need to increase the size of our index to have more comprehensive coverage, and that’s happening every day.

eHub: Does your user base reside in a primary geographic location or is it distributed?

Wink: Worldwide - although a large number are in the US right now.

eHub: Where do you see the project heading in the next 6 months?  The next 2 years?

Wink: 6 months: increasing amounts of user tagging and other forms of input, higher quality search, more personalization

2 years: in addition to a vast increase in user tagging we’ll integrate an rank other forms of input, discover new algorithms that can be applied to user input to improve the quality of search, and more personalization.

eHub: What is the greatest challenge to your success?

Wink: Getting the word out, and communicating this new form of user participative search to people who haven’t experienced it yet.

eHub: What is the one thing you need to get to the next phase of the project?

Wink: More outstanding engineers (we’re hiring!!!).

eHub: Do you have a business model?  If so, what is it?

Wink: We serve Google AdSense ads.

eHub: If you’re able to disclose this information, how much traffic or usage do you see on an average day?

Wink: Can’t disclose it, but an alexa.com search will show that it is growing pretty rapidly since our public launch 3 weeks ago.

eHub: What is the one thing you’re most proud of about the project?

Wink: That it creates a democracy for search - that people can come in, find what they like because someone else tagged it, and if they like what they find they can tag it so others that follow can find it more easily.

eHub: How would you describe the shift that’s occurring with the web right now to future generations?

Wink: It is really starting to involve the user.  It’s not just established players or companies promoting their view of the world - it’s users saying “this is what motivates me - these are my ideas” and Web is starting to be able to sort out all those different voices (not perfectly yet) but in exciting and interesting ways.  And that it is becoming truly international.

eHub: What site(s) do you visit everyday other than your own?

Wink: digg.com, del.icio.us, technorati.com, linkedin.com, wikipedia.com

eHub: How many hours of sleep do you get a night?

Wink: 4-5

Thanks to Michael Tanne, creator of Wink for this email interview posted January 24, 2006.

Visit Wink
Originally added to eHub on Dec 30, 05

» More eHub Interviews

eHub Interviews is a series with the creators of Web 2.0 applications and services by Emily Chang, author of eHub, designer, and co-founder and principal of Ideacodes, a strategic web consultancy in San Francisco that she co-founded with Max Kiesler.

Also see eHub Interviews in Japanese at CNET Japan