Sproose

Infobox Dotcom company
company_name = Sproose.com
company_
company_type = Internet
genre = Search Engine
foundation = October 2005
founder = Bob Pack
location = Danville, California, USA
revenue = unknown
employees = 7
parent =
divisions =
subsid =
company_slogan = "User-powered search"
url = [http://www.sproose.com/ sproose.com]


caption =
alexa =
type of site = Search engine with user voting
languages = English, German, French, Spanish
advertising = CPC text ads
registration =
launch_date = July 2007
current_status = live site
footnotes =
intl =

Sproose.com [http://www.sproose.com] is a consumer search engine launched in July 2007 by founder Bob Pack. Sproose provides web search results from partners including MSN, Yahoo and Ask. The user community is allowed to vote for any website, instantly moving it up in the search results order. The more votes a site receives the higher up in the results it will appear. Sproose is different from Google and Yahoo! or other algorithmic search engines because the users are able to influence the ranking order of the search results.

Users may comment on each website and a posting of the comments are visible to each user. Sproose allows users to delete bad links or Spam from the search results by clicking on the trash-can icon. Each user may create a personal profile page, which displays their vote history. The profile page can be either a private or public page.

Registration

Registration is not required to search on Sproose. If a user votes for a website, the vote is saved temporarily. In order to save the voted sites permanently, a user must sign-up by supplying a user name and password.

When a user registers with Sproose a personal profile page is created. Each time a site is voted a thumbnail and URL of the site is posted on the users profile page.

Several companies are involved in the human element of search. Mahalo and Wikia have each allowed the user to help build their index. The Sproose model is based upon improving the search results by allowing the users to vote on the most popular sites.

User Voting - Search features include the ability to vote and comment on the search results. To ensure privacy, interactive personalization and rating of search results are done without downloading applications or tracking site visits. User votes are stored in a database.

Privacy - When a user votes for a website, the information is anonymously stored in a database. Sproose does not track, store or compile a users URL or site visits in any way. This is different from other search engines that track users with “cookies” and accumulate data on search behavior.

Company Background

Sproose was started with the idea that human contribution to search results could provide a means to improve and refine the order in which resutls are ranked. Personal interaction could also detect bad links and Spam to help remove them from the results.

Bob Pack, Founder and CEO - has over 20 years of technology and Internet experience. In 1997 he co-started NetZero - NASDAQ (UNTD) as VP of Sales.

Gus Bourg, Vice President of Network Technology - founded an IT consulting business at the young age of 17 years. He later joined Internet start-up Freei Networks, a private label ISP, where he served as Director of Network Operations. The company built a national network infrastructure and grew to over 400 employees, then was aquired by NetZero. He has since held technical positions with Openwave Systems, Cingular Wireless and Microsoft, where he helped develop large-scale cluster management applications for MSN search.

Steve Bourg, Vice President of Developement - Steve began his career developing applications and network systems for an online mortgage company. He went on to co-found Internet start-up Freei Networks, a private label ISP, where he served as Chief Technology Officer, managing a department of over one hundred computer engineers until the company was acquired by NetZero. He then joined ATT Wireless where he worked in research and development on wireless application platforms.

Stefan Groschupf, CTO - Stefan is a German citizen who at the age of 19 years designed and built his own search engine for a University in Germany. At 21 years of age he founded Media Style, Inc., a computer engineering company specializing in text mining, search and e-commerce applications. Over the past 10 years he has consulted on Internet and database projects for BMW, Intel, Siemens and Hoffmann La Roche.

Mariano Belaunde, Director of Marketing - Originally from Lima, Peru. Started in International Marketing for [http://www.sproose.com.pe Sproose in Spanish] , later on named Director Of Marketing. Mariano is the nephew of twice-electedPeruvian ex-president Fernando Belaunde Terry.

Sproose is a private self- funded company.

References

*Citation
url=http://www.vator.tv/pitch/show/user-powered-search-engine
title=User powered search engine
journal =Vator TV

*Citation
url=http://www.newsweek.com/id/62254
title=Searching for the best engine
journal =Newsweek

*Citation
url=http://www.newsweek.com/id/62254
title=The human touch that may loosen Google's grip
journal =NY Times

*Citation
url=http://www.newsweek.com/id/62254
title=Social search engine Sproose final now live
journal =Lifehacker

*Citation
url=http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9768027-7.html
title=Sproose looks to goose the search biz
journal =CNET