Boogle
Boogle is an internet search engine developed on a hybrid blockchain. It emphasizes protecting users' privacy and giving users equity. It was launched in 2019 after two years of research and development.[1].
Users sign up to the platform by generating a private key. The search engine awards users with BOO tokens, a type of cryptocurrency issued by Boogle when users use it to search and click on advertisements that appear on the search engine page[2]. Users are shown the same search results for a given search term.
As of November 2019, it has 75,000 total visits on a monthly average according to SimilarWeb.com[3]
In the Boogle system, the technical manifestation of the blockchain focuses on four aspects: decentralized data storage, data encryption, content control and universalization incentive mechanism. Search data and products are built on decentralized storage. The data crawled by the crawler is stored on the Boogle blockchain and run by the miner through a hard disk.
Overview
Boogle was founded by Darren Goh and Patrick Lee in March 2017, in Singapore. The project is funded by co-founders and the founding team, with a capital fund of US$4 million. It is self-funded, with private investors coming in to buy BOO tokens in an initial round open only to private investors.
Prior to Boogle, Chief Executive Officer Patrick Lee has established businesses in various including information and communication technology, financial services, lifestyle, entertainment. He previously opened ICS Singapore and Kwonthum Labs[4]. Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Darren Goh has 15 years of experience in technology, developing new technologies and systems management for the Singapore Ministry of Defence, and the Singapore Navy. The co-founders set up Boogle in order to counter various political, economic, and social biases in the information provided by search engines, as proven by empirical studies.[5][6]. These biases can be a direct result of economic and commercial processes (e.g. companies that advertise with a search engine can become more popular in its organic search results), and political processes (e.g. the removal of search results to comply with local laws)[7]. Biases can also be a result of social processes. Search engine algorithms are frequently designed to exclude non-normative viewpoints in favor of more "popular" results[8]. Indexing algorithms of major search engines skew towards coverage of U.S.- based sites, rather than websites from non-U.S. countries[5].
Boogle was appointed the Principal Partner of Singapore's National Day Parade in 2019[9] to handle the software development for the event's operations and introduced blockchain technology into the organiser’s operation systems[10]. In September 2019, BOO tokens were listed on Digifinex[11] where users of the search engine can exchange the tokens with Bitcoin (BTC) or Tether (USDT). In December 2019, Boogle collaborated with JustCo and KILSA to enter the South Korean market[12][13].
Boogle has a total of 103 staff, 83 of whom are engineers. Out of this number of engineers, six are from Singapore, while the rest are from India, Pakistan, Belarus and the Netherlands. The engineers passed the talent introduction assessment of the Singapore government[14]. According to their Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Darren Goh, Boogle's projects are developed in-house, instead of relying on outsourced workers[14].
The meaning behind 'Boogle'
There have been a few claims on the meaning of Boogle. The first is that it is a reference to "boo" which is a slang for "someone you love, someone you care about, and someone who is a lifetime best friend"[4]. In another article, James Yong, head of Boogle China told Odaily that the "B" in "Boogle" represents blockchain[15]. In an article by Box Mining, Benson Chan wrote that "Boogle is a blockchain powered search engine that plays a cheeky tongue-in-cheek to its primary competitor "Google". The name 'Boogle' is a combination of the words "Blockchain" and "Google"[16].
Public Reception
Since the rollout of Boogle's alpha version last year, and subsequently the beta version, the site has amassed over three million subscribers from Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, and South Korea[4]. Additionally, it is reported to have over 5 million subscribers[17] from Vietnam, Philippines, Cambodia, Mexico, Spain, Kenya and Russia[18]
Author Benson Chan, who reviewed Boogle on Boxmining, which is a site that covers insights on cryptocurrency and blockchain news, gave the Boogle search engine an 84% relevancy score which is still some ways away from Google at 96%. Even though they gave positive reviews for the privacy factor of the VPN, and the idea of rewarding users with cryptocurrency, the yield of gaining BOO tokens after using the search engine for one week was too little for them[19].
References
- ↑ "Companies Like 'Boogle' Are Finally Ready to Address Net-Neutrality and Data Privacy On a Global Scale". finance.yahoo.com. Retrieved 2020-01-09.
- ↑ Ping, Chong Koh (2019-06-06). "Move over Google, here's Singapore's Boogle". SGSME.SG. Retrieved 2019-12-10.
- ↑ "Similar Web". www.similarweb.com. Retrieved 2020-01-09. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 "12 August 2019 - Featured in New Straits Times". Boogle Community. 2019-09-27. Retrieved 2020-01-09.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Segev, Elad (2010-01-21). Google and the Digital Divide: The Bias of Online Knowledge. Elsevier. ISBN 978-1-78063-178-3. Search this book on
- ↑ "Seznam Takes on Google in the Czech Republic". DOZ. 2015-08-05. Retrieved 2020-01-09.
- ↑ Jansen, B.J.; Rieh, S. (August 2010). "The Seventeen Theoretical Constructs of Information Searching and Information Retrieval" (PDF). Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology. 61 (8): 1517–1534.
- ↑ Berkman Center for Internet & Society (2002). "Replacement of Google with Alternative Search Systems in China: Documentation and Screen Shots". Harvard Law School.
- ↑ "Boogle launches a censorship-free and autonomous search engine, the world's first built by its user community on a blockchain platform". Cyber Security Asean. Retrieved 2019-12-10.
- ↑ Centre, News (2019-06-11). "Boogle – autonomous, blockchain-based search engine launched". Disruptive.Asia. Retrieved 2019-12-10.
- ↑ "DigiFinex Digital Assets Exchange - Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, blockchain assets trading platform". www.digifinex.com. Retrieved 2019-12-10.
- ↑ "세계 최초의 검열 없는 검색엔진 부글(Boogle), 한국 시장 진출". it.chosun.com (in 한국어). 2019-11-27. Retrieved 2019-12-10.
- ↑ "세계 최초의 검열 없는 검색엔진 부글(Boogle), 한국 시장에 진출". n.news.naver.com (in 한국어). Retrieved 2019-12-10.
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 "用Boogle搜索能赚币，你会为此放弃百度和Google吗？_36氪". 36kr.com. Retrieved 2020-01-09.
- ↑ Boogle (2019-10-23). "Coverage on BTCTrade.com — You can earn money by searching with Boogle". Medium. Retrieved 2020-01-09.
- ↑ B.C. (2019-10-23). "Boogle Review: Blockchain Blunder or Genius Search Engine?". Boxmining. Retrieved 2020-01-09.
- ↑ Slater, Adam (2019-08-13). "Introducing Boogle a Blockchain Search Engine for Asia". Asia Crypto Today. Retrieved 2019-12-10.
- ↑ Centre, News (2019-06-11). "Boogle – autonomous, blockchain-based search engine launched". Disruptive.Asia. Retrieved 2019-12-10.
- ↑ B.C. (2019-10-23). "Boogle Review: Blockchain Blunder or Genius Search Engine?". Boxmining. Retrieved 2020-01-09.
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