Target users of FeFoo

As of now I am targeting no more than 100 users. Even if a 100 users like it and use it daily it would be an achievement. Since its difficult for most people to figure out that FeFoo is not a search engine but just a search application which makes it easier to find things on the internet. It lets you target your search according to the topics. Had it not been for fefoo I would have long forgotten wink a great search engine to find people online.

FeFoo just makes it simpler to use multiple search engines without remembering too much. I have made quite a bit of progress on the code lately. Still have not turned on the caching that will make the whole thing fast. Also having a bit of trouble with the auto update and analytics module. Hopefully once I finish them off it will be ready for a soft launch.

I just hope I have atleast 100 users within a month of launch. Lets wait and watch. Still not sure how I am going to find people who will use it.

Has the search battle been won?

A few new search engines were launched in the last 2 years but none of them could make a mark. Not because they were bad, well let me rephrase, some were actually bad. But some of them had a great concept but still they could not make a mark. The main issue is that people don't like change. The change has to be so subtle that no one even knows the change and yet if they try and go back they feel an urge to stick to the new product. The reason for the delay in developing and bringing out fefoo was that it has to be perfect from the word go. If its rejected the first time no one will bother using it again. In less than a minute it should be useful enough for a user to think of using the product.

Again like I have said before fefoo is not a search engine but it just helps you to search better with the existing search engines. And with the quickest loading homepage it loads in a fraction of a second. That is one of the most important things I had to keep in mind. If it takes more than second to load I've already lost the battle. The battle is about relevance and also speed to get to the final results in the least possible clicks.

Fefoo in that sense is the simplest possible applications that I've developed but also the only product that has been in testing for more than 2 years. It still might fail to make any mark but I use it daily and that is one test that it has passed. Lets see till when I keep using it, and when I finally dump it.

The search problem and redefining it

Let me start with the introduction of fefoo is and how I started about developing it. I started more than 3 years back. Seems like a really long time, but its unlike what the initial concept was going to be. It began as a search wiki and changed many forms over the years. Nothing was launched since in most cases it was just a concept. The main trouble was the amount of resources required for anything related to search.

Over the last two years a few search engines have been launched and relaunched but they have not been able to capture any market from Google. The main reason is that search is not really broken or at least most people are able to use Google and see no use in going with some other search engine. Its a really unique problem, even if a new search engine is released its difficult for it to get any market share since people are so used to just one search engine. Even if newer search engines are lunched they need to be similar to the big one and yet offer something unique and that's really difficult.

Taking that into context I finally gave up on working on anything related to a search engine. And that's where the present thing came up. Its not yet another search engine but allows you to use multiple search engines and makes sure you get what you are looking for. It can also act like a command line to the internet. Its something that I would use and that's why its important and maybe others will feel the same about it.