Gazerk Q/A: Ziff Davis Gaming Search Engine Speaks
A few weeks ago, I gave my opinions on Gazerk, a search engine geared for gamers. While I was pretty harsh on the design and some of the results, I felt that Ziff Davis Media Group is absolutely on the right track.

Ziff Davis’ publications like PC Magazine, Electronic Gaming Monthly and many others, put them in a unique position to leverage their expertise, knowledge and reputation in the gaming industry to consolidate their information in a search engine.

After my previous post, Jason Freidenfelds, the PR Manager for the 1UP Network contacted me to start a discussion about Gazerk, gamers and their search engine. While at times what I wrote was pretty rough, he told me that I brought up some good points.

Jason and I started chatting and I started receiving questions from other industry watchers and gamers alike.

With that kind of response, I thought it would be appropriate to have an informal email interview with Gazerk and the people at the 1UP Network, namely Jason Freidenfelds and Ira Becker, SVP and General Manager of the 1UP Network.

JP: Which sites would Gazerk consider to be the competition?

Gazerk: To the best of our knowledge, there isn't another vertical search engine focused specifically on the gaming market, so to a large extent we're in competition with ourselves to develop a product as fast as possible that is clearly different from other search products.

We've got a lot of great ideas that we'll be implementing in very short order, and we expect to be adding features and functionality on a rapid basis.

JP’s Response: While at the moment, there are no US competitors, Wazap is planning on expanding its current gaming search engine into the US later on this year.

Currently, Wazap is the market leader in both Germanyand Japan and having recently opened an office in Shanghai, it’s likely that they will do well there too.

According to Wellington Partners in Münich, the Japanese market has over 70,000 users.

JP: How does Gazerk plan to be a resource to the gaming community?

Gazerk: The type and format of results we return will get increasingly sophisticated.

You can check out what our search technology partner Kosmix has done with their health vertical search at www.kosmix.com to get an idea of some of the more sophisticated search result formats and categories we might consider, and of course we’re watching the whole search space to see what kinds of search capabilities gamers want most so we can prioritize new feature development.

Eventually we’re also looking to integrate Gazerk with other neutral sources like GameTab.com, our site that aggregates news feeds from across the entire Web.

We could see bringing in more feeds of various sorts to supplement the standard search results, but our plan is to keep it neutral and have it search the entire Web.

JP’s Response: I think the question here is not, “How can we be better than Google?” but “How can we serve and provide relevant information to gamers?”

A lot of critiques can be made comparing Kosmix or Gazerk to Google, however, if Gazerk meets their audiences’ needs and expectations, the level of relevance and sophistication can evolve with Gazerk.

JP: How will you leverage the social networks of gamers through tagging or other methods?

Gazerk: For now we’re going to focus our user feedback and content ranking systems on the 1UP Network community, on sites like 1UP.com and GameVideos.com.

Gazerk isn’t part of the 1UP Network, and in fact we want to keep Gazerk as independent and algorithmic as possible so gamers are confident they’re getting impartial results from across the Web.

But community is an important part of everything we do, so we’re building Gazerk to search all kinds of community sources, from the smallest user-generated blogs and forums to the largest gaming sources out there.

We have a blogs category on Gazerk, we can take RSS feeds, and we’re planning more community searching capabilities.

In the near future you’re probably going to see more of that kind of active feedback on the 1UP Network proper rather than on Gazerk, since, again, we’re trying to keep Gazerk as objective as possible.

But user feedback mechanisms are something we’re watching closely.

JP’s Response: I’m encouraged that users will be able to contribute to the outcome of Gazerk.

By tapping into the social nature of gamers and their often opinionated (gamers? opinionated? surely you jest) comments, Gazerk can be a huge resource to the community by providing socially augmented results.

JP: Does Gazerk plan on being involved with the gaming community?

Gazerk: Community functions are generally more the role of the 1UP Network – 1UP.com in particular. We’re positioning Gazerk as an impartial tool for finding all these networks of people, rather than a community or social hub itself. By maintaining Gazerk’s role as a search tool, we’ll at some point be able to incorporate its search technology into the 1UP Network and possibly other sites. So it’s not a community hub itself, but a tool that powers search across and within gaming communities like the 1UP Network.

We really like the idea of actively keeping people in the loop – Google News alerts are a very appealing search service, and we may do something similar with “Gazerk alerts” to keep folks updated when new content they’re seeking appears.

And, of course, as we develop Gazerk, we’re eager to get feedback from search and gaming enthusiasts, so especially in the beginning here, we’ll want to foster an informal Gazerk dev community. Check out the Gazerk feedback club at Gazerk-Club.1UP.com.

JP’s Response: I just signed up to stay in the loop.

JP: Would you be able to describe some of the challenges in developing an algorithm that is focused on a vertical?

Gazerk: We partnered with Kosmix because they’re the best-of-breed vertical search technology. Check out the news on these guys – they’ve really revolutionized vertical search with their categorization algorithms.

Objectivity of results is important to us, which again is why it’s great to have a search technology partner that really understands how to search the entire Web for content in a given vertical.

A side benefit is that working with Kosmix’s engineers has given us great insights into SEO best practices, so our 1UP Network content can be indexed better not just by Gazerk, but by Google and Yahoo and all the rest.

JP: How can Gazerk keep up with the feverish pace of gaming information and news?

Gazerk: Well, the content changes rapidly, but our understanding of gaming categories and mapping of content types is relatively stable. That’s where Ziff Davis Game Group’s editorial expertise really comes into play – we know how gaming breaks down and how gamers think about gaming content.

Partnering with Kosmix also means we can build a custom solution like this very rapidly and make changes as necessary – they’re a great partner to have.

I’d like to thank Jason Freidenfelds and Ira Becker for taking the time to answer my questions in such a timely and friendly manner.

Wazap! vs. Gazerk: the Emerging Vertical Search Rivalry
Games have always been replete with classic rivalries. With Wazap entering the gaming search marketplace later this year, it looks like the competition is going to heat up. According to eMarketer, 40% of American adults play video games (35% female, 45% male).

When those percentages are converted into sheer numbers and sales, that is a staggering market to enter.

Keep reading Search Engine Lowdown as I take the competitive intelligence microscope to Wazap as they enter the US market in direct competition with Gazerk.

About the author:
JP Sherman is the head of the competitive intelligence section at MarketSmart Interactive. Using data driven and analytical methodologies, he unleashes the predictive power of data by converting it into actionable intelligence. Read his white paper on competitive search intelligence or contact him at jp.sherman@marketsmartinteractive.com
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