Webupon

Wowd, a new peer-to-peer search engine, was publicly released during the San Francisco Web 2.0 conference recently.  With all the search engines currently available, what makes this one different?  It is uniquely combines peer-to-peer technology with real-time results.  A great combination that delivers a fantastic searching tool.

Instead of digging to find information, Wowd brings the information to you.  Meaningful and updated information is at your fingertips.  The more you search and the more others search, the better this search engine operates.

Normal search engines depend heavily upon SEO practices.  Good websites utilizing good SEO practices will show up higher in results based on keywords and phrases.  Wowd pretty much tosses this approach out the window as higher results are based on what you and your peers choose.  

This all works very simply but may be a cause of concern for those with privacy issues and a desire to not have their website clicks tracked.  A peer-to-peer client needs to be downloaded to the user’s computer in order for Wowd to do its thing.  This client can be configured to allow or restrict privacy based on your preferences.  After the client has been downloaded and configured, you can then used Wowd to search.  When you come across a site you feel deserves to be higher up in the rankings, you click on a button to nominate it.  The more nominations, the higher up that site shows for others seeking the same information.

The very thing that makes Wowd work may be the reason why it won’t be adopted too quickly.  The peer-to-peer client does track your surfing and many may feel this is too intrusive for their liking.  However, as Wowd becomes more mainstream and is accepted, we may see more real-time search engines very soon.