Rushmore Drive: Is it worth my time?
April 09, 08 by admin
I was talking to CollectiveX’s CEO, Clarence Wooten about Rushmore Drive shortly after it’s launch party event. His perception of the offering is that it offers intelligent search results for matters related to people of color. My initial reaction was why? How vast are African American interest outside matters of entertainment and sports? My daily social interactions with Black people on Twitter and elsewhere indicate that they’re more interested in who’s wining in a NCAA tournament more so then who’s winning in the Democratic National nomination process. So how useful is a online tool aimed specifically towards the needs of the Black end user? To answer my questions I point my browser to http://www.rushmoredrive.com/. Well it looks ok. It’s homepage relying heavily on the played out Web 2.0 beveled header bars and it’s use of the color brown signifying that this is indeed here for Black people. Color me unimpressed so far.
Your main search parameters are laid out nice and clearly above the input field. You have Web, News, Images, Videos, Blogs, Jobs, City, and Maps to round out your search parameters. I wanted to test it’s performance using what a typical Black person’s interest may be. My search was focused in the blog category using the term “entertainment”. The first 4 returns where links to audio files with no relevancy. The first actual blog site was “Movie Blog” which is based in the land down under. Ok, I admit the search term was vague and could be subject to interpretation, so let’s narrow our search term by including the word “urban”. Instantly, I get a, “No Search Suggestions Found.” This is disturbing, let’s click through and see what happens. see results. No “Urban Entertainment” Blogs that I remotely recognize. This is not a good look. In comparision a Google search returned far more useful results. see results.
I know this is a short & quick analysis of Rushmore Drive, but my utter disappointed would not allow me to explore further. I’ll come back to it once they’ve generated more useful data within their intelligent search algorithms. But for now I can’t cosign it.
-holla
See related Valleywag :post:
- Date Wednesday, 09 Apr 08 at 10:33 pm
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Lynne d Johnson Says: 10.04.08 at 8:56 am
Ok you sound like Jay-Z with all blacks got is sports and entertainment. I talk to black people on twitter too — we talk about more than sports and entertainment. And your “typical black person” comment — a little surprised by you on that one. What is a “typical black person.” As a black person, I find it difficult to think that you would subscribe to a monolithic blackness.
Now on your points about RushmoreDrive overall, about how the search works — I can get with you. But the service also says it will get better as more people use it, but they really have to use it — as in rate the findings in their search.
Sure, like you and many others, I wonder do we need sites like GlobalGrind or RushmoreDrive — but as you even say, you just did a couple of searches to come up with your analysis. Maybe you’re not the “typical black person.” Maybe “typical” black people will find the site useful. Perhaps those are the same people that use BET.com and BlackVoices.com.
admin Says: 10.04.08 at 12:15 pm
Lynne, true indeed. I guess my fustration lies in the fact that A. they’ve had a year to tweak this thing. B. As I spoke to Clarence and he sent me to blackweb20.com I realized they have absolutely no way to search their Wordpress install. That kinda irked me. C. I’ve been building a site for people of color for a couple of weeks and I want to strap a bomb to my back and go to their office right about now. So current state of mind is the culprit.
I guess I should give them some time. But I look at the things Jason Calacanis (I know I didn’t just mention Jason Calicanis) is doing and to me that formula would work better in this instance. To me this feels like a “me too” platform and while they have an exclusive deal to their backend technology my theory is no technology can gage what’s really good from the clutter. So I stand knocked down about 2 notches because as I read what I wrote. I sound like someone on the outside making blanket judgments about people that I don’t know.
Kathy Says: 11.04.08 at 6:46 am
So I actually went to the site to see what all the hoopla was about. I love their news because it doesnt assume all I want to know about is urban sport, entertainment or celebrity. It gave me all the top news and some interesting black point of views on subjects. I loved the piece on black girls and stds, for example (so sad). Then i went to the jobs section. It was like Monster and Linked-In combined — not many people in it yet, but all the jobs were there. Finally, the search. Sorry, but I loved it. I really pushed it because i was considering replacing google anyway - hate it. Much to my surprise, their results page was very attractive and the results were really good — nice mix of black and white (just like my neighborhood, my church, my grocery store, my friends — you get it). If you were looking for a black search engine, this aint it. But if you were looking for a search engine (as that cute CEO said) FOR black people, RushmoreDrive is it. I dont know about you, but I have never typed in films, books, or anything and got black results on the front page unless I typed “african american” before it. I didnt have to do it at RushmoreDrive.
And more than anything — this is a brother trying to bring us up and here we are shooting him down on day one because 2 searches didnt give us perfect results. We are some pitiful people sometimes. Martin would be turning over in his grave 40 years later cause we still want perfection from black people and accept far less from white people with a smile and a thank you. I quite like RushmoreDrive and I’m going to convince all my friends to use it.
admin Says: 11.04.08 at 10:36 am
Well Cathy I’ll tell you what. I will use it as my search engine of choice for one entire day And I ‘ll append this review. As far as me taking swipes at the brother this is not that. I don’t know him. What I do know is that the concept of specialized search is moving outside the capabilities that intelligent search can provide. See Mahalo.com to see what I’m talking about. I’m all about anyone coming out in the marketplace to compete. But just like companies I’ve worked for like UBO that had a 10,000 ft view on their offering I can’t really see the validity in a search engine being a good business move.
Johnny Taylor Says: 11.04.08 at 7:23 pm
Thanks so much for giving RushmoreDrive.com a try. I really appreciate the feedback you’ve provided and we’re going to do everything we can to win you over because RushmoreDrive.com’s mission is to improve the search experience for members of the Black community like you.
Anyone who knows me, knows I’m always trying to improve myself and our Black community. So your honest feedback is welcomed; keep kicking the tires at RushmoreDrive and keep sending me feedback (positive and not-so-positive (smile)), because the more WE use it, the better IT gets.
Finally, keep in mind that RushmoreDrive is not a Black or Urban search engine; we are a search engine for the Black community. The distinction is important because we want the community to use RushmoreDrive.com for all of its search needs — not just Black information. So test RushmoreDrive out on any subject and compare us to other mainstream search engines; I’m confident that, on balance, you’ll see our results equal and exceed the search experience you’ll find anywhere else.
Thanks again for taking the time to give us feedback. And check out our News and Job Networks features too when you get some time.
Respectfully,
Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.
President & CEO
RushmoreDrive.com
P.S. Your idea of a search widget — even a toolbar — is on our list of coming new release features. Expect to see this and other features rolling-out over the next few months.