Wow, what a busy day we’re having launching Scour! Thanks to everyone who has visited, signed up and started using the site! Check out all the buzz here…
I am very pleased with initial user thoughts and feedback we’ve been getting. People are really understanding the value of scour we had envisioned when re-designing the product, and we hope they continue to see benefits as they use the engine more regularly.
Our biggest hurdle now will be to get our message out: we think that contributing to a search engine’s relevancy while being rewarded is the next generation of search “3.0″. We’re on the ground floor now, and the only direction is UP! Search is the starting point of the web and we are excited to connect searchers to a powerful and unique new search experience.
We’ve noticed a lot of buzz around the “rewards” part of the site. I’m going to address this in more detail in another post soon, but I did want to mention that the rewards really do add up quickly when you give the site a try. An average user with only 25 referred friends all doing only THREE searches a day can earn $100 a year or more. That’s a lot more than you earn from Google! Feel free to leave any questions or comments here and we’ll try to address them in upcoming posts!
Dan Yomtobian - CEO of Scour.com
38 responses so far ↓
1 Glitchzero // Jul 14, 2008 at 8:23 pm
I must say, so far I am impressed. I followed the link for this site over from Lifehacker’s article on Scour, and the first thing that caught my eye is how non-invasive it is. Yes, they ask you to download their search bar, and yes, they ask you to refer your friends, but this is not a requirement for you to actually collect points toward rewards. The idea that you can let your friends make the choice of giving up their email address by sending a referral URL is a breath of fresh air for this type of site.
I did not actually use any of Scour’s predecessors, but the idea seems extremely sound. The idea of collecting user input to validate search results has long been used on the shadier sites such as torrent movie download sites for years. To take this idea and apply it to the web in general is an idea that if it can be kept out of the hands of the narrow minded “this suck” crowd, it will work marvellously.
2 JonQ // Jul 14, 2008 at 9:33 pm
Hello came across this site from lifehacker as well and agree with the poster above on a job well done so far! I think its good idea to rate searches and hopefully save some time when trying to find some quality sites!
3 Daniel Yomtobian // Jul 14, 2008 at 9:48 pm
Thanks Glitchzero, this is just the beginning, you will se a lot more feature updates in the very near future, thank you for being one of the first to be a part of the Scour community.
-Dan
4 megan // Jul 14, 2008 at 9:49 pm
Nowhere on the site does it show the relationship of points to dollar. That’d be good information to know.
5 Armando // Jul 14, 2008 at 10:07 pm
Yo vine gracias a http://ayudawordpress.com/ ellos han hecho resaltar el beneficio de este buscador, no solo por el $$ sino por que las busquedas seran calificadas de forma correcta por los usuarios.
saludos…
6 scouradmin // Jul 14, 2008 at 10:16 pm
Hi Megan,
The minimum cash out tier is at 6500 points for $25 that comes out to about $.0038 = 1point. Hope this clarifies.
Thanks for using Scour!
-Simon
Scour Team Member
7 vitc // Jul 14, 2008 at 10:52 pm
Would love it if you could get those referral banners and text up so we can start promoting asap…love scour by the way!
8 diablodevil2 // Jul 14, 2008 at 11:17 pm
It’s…a little addicting seeing those points add up o.o I don’t think I’ll be surprised to see Scour really evolve, especially if you add some really fun customizations. Achievements, of a sort, kinda, avatars (although I’m betting those are on the way), maybe some scavenger hunt events, things of that nature.
Make it fun, and word will get around.
9 pete // Jul 15, 2008 at 12:16 am
So far I haven’t had a very good experience; getting very limited results, seeing irrelevant comments and not having a way to vote them down.
I worry that the incentive of points being used on this site will lead to muddied results - with users being attracted to search/rate/comment etc en-mass, to simply rack up the points.
I’ll stick around to see how it goes, but for now I think social bookmarking sites like delicious and magnolia are the place to find the best results.
10 bananers // Jul 15, 2008 at 1:17 am
is there a maximum number of points per day/hour/etc?
11 Glitchzero // Jul 15, 2008 at 5:17 am
Hey Megan,
If you take a look under your profile in the Referral Toolbox, you will see a basic breakdown of points, and you will also see a Scour points calculator to see some dollar values based on searches and referrals.
Have fun!
12 Mobile Answers // Jul 15, 2008 at 7:41 am
Anyway of having a search box I can put on my site that if anyone uses I get credit for points?
13 Marius Filip // Jul 15, 2008 at 10:41 am
I liked Scour instantly, and not for the reward points. It is the generous idea of having an engine which yields quality results that matters - besides searching with more engines at once.
The Internet is growing exponentially and finding relevant information is becoming more and more harder. I think Scour is and will be of great help.
Interesting would be Scour to provide its own search engine.
14 Jason // Jul 15, 2008 at 10:55 am
Can you make a Mac compatible toolbar.. .exe files are just no good. That aside its awesome.
15 Mark Stephenson // Jul 15, 2008 at 11:21 am
I can’t see anywhere whether the cash incentive applies to just US residents or if you can get it if you live in other countries (e.g. the UK)?
16 Mobile Answers // Jul 15, 2008 at 2:16 pm
I think cash incentives applies to everyone. The visa card they send out is probably one of those online ones - that are disposable or you can refill. I at least hope it’s one of those that would make it really really cool. I’ve been using it for 2 days and already have 500 points - to be honest I made 250 points from signing up and the toolbar. The rest are purely from searches, I haven’t referred anyone yet so I haven’t earned those points. It’ll be rather tricky convincing people to use it..even with the points.
17 Glitchzero // Jul 15, 2008 at 4:58 pm
I absolutely agree with Marcus Filip, the possibilities here are endless.
Not only that, but I have actually started to prefer the look and feel of Scour over other search engines. The visual styling just feels cleaner, and easier on the eyes.
As for convincing people to sign up, I agree, it could be tricky, especially when there are still sites out there burning people every day trying to get you to “sign up”. The one thing I have found however, is that people perk up a little when you tell them just how little information the site is asking for initially. People seem a little more open to trying it out after finding that out.
18 Greg // Jul 15, 2008 at 6:10 pm
I’m utterly impressed with what you’ve done so far and like yourself have had grand ideas of how to profit online by sharing income with consumers. It is the only logical next step for the future of the net.
Everything you’ve done so far is pin-point perfect I must say. But can google stop you from using their search engine? Can they ban you since you’ve devised away to deter revenue from them if your site starts to take off?
This would be my main concern if I was in your shoes.
Kudos, I’ve already told all my most intellegent friends about your amazing sight and to be ready for a lot more things like this in the future.
Greg
19 Greg // Jul 15, 2008 at 7:51 pm
How are you guarding yourself from people using bots to boost their points?
20 Simon // Jul 15, 2008 at 7:53 pm
Great site. I am going to earn money for what i do every day woop.
Simon
Did you get my job email?
21 David Mackey // Jul 15, 2008 at 11:53 pm
Couple technical notes:
1. The feedback area that takes one to surveymonkey doesn’t work. A nice ajax contact form instead would be great. I don’t like surveys anyways.
2. The results page should remember how I voted on a story.
3. There should be a back button on the scour bar at the bottom of a results page so that I can navigate back to my search results.
David.
22 Kapil Chhabra // Jul 16, 2008 at 8:24 am
Congratulations for the launch and the brilliant idea.
I am sure you must have thought about handling the traffic generated by bots .
23 JohnPowell // Jul 16, 2008 at 11:20 am
This is a great Idea, wish I had come up with it,
but I didn’t so I wish you very good luck with
it. All the big boys miss this one, you going to be a rich person, because one of the big boys will buy
you out possible just to close you down.
As I said good luck with it.
24 manojsalwani // Jul 16, 2008 at 1:02 pm
I will say this is another search engine which is going to become next competitor for GOOGLE YAHOO and for MSN but that will take time. So lets see when it will be possible if you need any suggestion for the promotion of this search engine. You can contact me I have new Ideas.
I was also thinking to make such type of search engine but you came up first with this idea. Best of luck.
25 Humayun // Jul 16, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Wish all the best.
26 Greg // Jul 16, 2008 at 5:40 pm
None of your listed contact Email accounts are working. what’s up?
27 huskiesrule1997 // Jul 16, 2008 at 6:55 pm
hi i love this site, does it matter wat age u are to use a visa gift card?
28 Scour - Social Search - Influence Search Results // Jul 27, 2008 at 2:16 pm
[...] launch day madness! [...]
29 Nikhil T. James // Aug 3, 2008 at 9:24 pm
A Very innovative concept!
Already posted to my collection of innovative and cool web 2.0 apps! Please do consider to add my blog (http://asap.nikjam.com/) to your growning list of blogs.
Thank you and All the Best!
30 Jyoti // Aug 4, 2008 at 5:23 am
kewl site….n i’m falling in luv with it !
31 “And the first Scour payout goes to…” « // Aug 5, 2008 at 3:07 am
[...] from a friend and decided to put our news social search to the test. After signing up during our big launch day (July 14th) Peter became a dedicated Scour user, rating and commenting on searches and was able to [...]
32 Saswat // Aug 6, 2008 at 8:29 pm
One more thing…
Under my profile … couldnt you add the list of my friends who joined by my referral… and their points maybe…
means that would be loved by all users i guess…. and would make the system transparent
33 Amitava Khan // Aug 7, 2008 at 6:52 am
Very Good..
34 Atiqul Islam // Aug 9, 2008 at 2:23 pm
I like it & trying send my friend to get 25 dolors
35 DILIP NAIR // Aug 10, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Its a great honour to be a part of scour.
36 Jarna // Aug 11, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Congrats! great idea… Can not believe that I’m gonna make money for the thing I do for time pass…
37 vvspk // Aug 13, 2008 at 4:45 am
Thank you scour. It a great opportunity to all.
38 Uma // Aug 14, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Is there a limit on the max number of searches you can make per day?
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