@ Great story ; I read the book of "The Search" by John Battle, quite inspirational (for IT startups). Reading the conversation you had with the company owners, it seems they fed you lines from the book as to what sets 'google' search engine apart. However, I still don't understand the logic of the great lengths they took to insist that they came up with the scripts,,, Because from my point of view, it does not matter, they are here for business -ain't it ? And if they can be able to attract 1 million or more people to use their services, then target is achieved,,, What do they have to gain by denying the source of the script ? Except post success embarrassment. My advise to them: -Great artists copy ( that has worked well for many ) -If you want to touch the sky, you can either get yourself a plane,or wait to grow to be 30,000 ft tall, or step on the shoulders of giants - then use your own arms to scratch the skies for rain :) w/regards Stephen N Sent from my iPhone On Jul 23, 2010, at 7:52 PM, aki <aki275@googlemail.com> wrote:

@Dennis, nice writeup on the Irozho story in CIO. BD tech writer is surely going to have some serious competition, especially with many holes in their articles that sometimes I don't know what to say about it. I definately congratulate you on making it to the CIO writeup. I'd suggest that you attend some journalism classes that will help you become a better writer because kenyan scene is buzzing with myths and genuine innovations. With that said, good luck and congrats again. :-)

On Fri, Jul 23, 2010 at 5:03 PM, Dennis Kioko <dmbuvi@gmail.com> wrote:

...

-- with Regards: is Irozho really an Indigenous Kenyan search engine or an Indigenous Kenyan Script? Find out at http://www.cio.co.ke/index.php/view-all-analysis-items/1278-on-the-trail-of-...

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@Stephen, my view. I dont think you realize the gravity of the issue in the tech world and use of words like "Kenyan Search Engine" carries a very heavy responsibilty. Was the engine developed locally? We as a tech community are proud to see kenyans prospers in any technology achievements. That is our target of technology excellence. Many like me would have easily bought ailing search engines worth nothing a few years ago and re-branded them for commercial use eg " Nairobian Search Engine". There is a very big difference between re-branding code and actually developing one. If one is building on frameworks and if their developments are queried, they should be open. Here is another problem with the Search Engine Developers, they also do web design and hosting? Huh? The issue is not the business model nor framework used and good luck/success to them, it is the " I invented another youtube clone..." and try to market it as something it is not. When you know you have developed a search engine, trust me you'd want to scream your lungs out to let the world know!! Me thots and corrections welcome. :-) On Sat, Jul 24, 2010 at 1:36 PM, Stephen Ndungu <ndungustephen@gmail.com> wrote:

@

Because from my point of view, it does not matter, they are here for business -ain't it ? And if they can be able to attract 1 million or more people to use their services, then target is achieved,,,

What do they have to gain by denying the source of the script ? Except post success embarrassment.

My advise to them:

-Great artists copy ( that has worked well for many )

-If you want to touch the sky, you can either get yourself a plane,or wait to grow to be 30,000 ft tall, or step on the shoulders of giants - then use your own arms to scratch the skies for rain :)

w/regards Stephen N

Sent from my iPhone

Stephen, if I were them I'd use words like Kenyan Search Engine, built on the power of eg Google etc. No one really cares about the frameworks used and would be ideally questioned on further development they did on it eg improvements or localization. That would be the innovative/improvement factor, especially for a search engine. What is Kenyan about a Kenyan Search Engine? However, when they use words alone and in the case of a search engine development, within the tech community you and me want to shake their hands and congratulate them on their success because now as Kenya we have just excelled in a certain speciality field. Lakini wapi, if guys cannot shoot straight answers to simply questions then we are in trouble. Did they ever expect a tech person to query them? I dont think so. It may look like we are being judgemental but it is necessary to put pressure on genuine innovation and the rest. As an example look at Ushaidi, which is built on many frameworks. No one cares about the framework nor talks about it yet it is the innovative implemetation that they did which makes all the difference. Me thots and corrections welcome. :-) On Sat, Jul 24, 2010 at 3:54 PM, Stephen Ndungu <ndungustephen@gmail.com> wrote:

@Aki

I wanted to point out the separation between "businessmen" and inventors...

The idea of the guys passing themselves as "inventors" is puzzling to me and misleading...

Then I thought about what you have written - and it occured to me - mabbe passing themselves as "Kenyan search engine inventors" bears more marketing clout than just another downloaded clone...

Mabbe they figured it wil attract the pride of east Africans  and thus local market investors ??

It is not a good idea; because shud they become a success, and the truth is exposed; and if their investors care about originality cos of cutbacks to the owners of the code - that won't end up good.

What are your thots ??

Some things to know about a search engine and its complex algorithms. Even large companies faced many hurdles. There are many articles on the net, some highlights below : Yahoo! Search Yahoo! was founded in 1994 by David Filo and Jerry Yang as a directory of websites. For many years they outsourced their search service to other providers, but by the end of 2002 they realized the importance and value of search and started aggressively acquiring search companies. Overture purchased AllTheWeb and AltaVista. Yahoo! purchased Inktomi (in December 2002) and then consumed Overture (in July of 2003), and combined the technologies from the various search companies they bought to make a new search engine. Yahoo! dumped Google in favor of their own in house technology on February 17th, 2004. MSN Search MSN Search had many incarnations, being powered by the likes of Inktomi and Looksmart for a number of years. After Yahoo! bought Inktomi and Overture it was obvious to Microsoft that they needed to develop their own search product. They launched their technology preview of their search engine around July 1st of 2004. They formally switched from Yahoo! organic search results to their own in house technology on January 31st, 2005. MSN announced they dumped Yahoo!'s search ad program on May 4th, 2006. Google Google sprang out of a Stanford research project to find authoritative link sources on the web. In January of 1996 Larry Page and Sergey Brin began working on BackRub. After they tried shopping the Google search technology to no avail they decided to set up their own search company. Within a few years of forming the company they won distribution partnerships with AOL and Yahoo! that helped build their brand as the industry leader in search. Traditionally search was viewed as a loss leader. Despite the dotcom fever of the day, they had little interest in building a company of their own around the technology they had developed. Among those they called on was friend and Yahoo! founder David Filo. Filo agreed that their technology was solid, but encouraged Larry and Sergey to grow the service themselves by starting a search engine company. "When it's fully developed and scalable," he told them, "let's talk again." Others were less interested in Google, as it was now known. One portal CEO told them, "As long as we're 80 percent as good as our competitors, that's good enough. Our users don't really care about search." Google did not have a profitable business model until the third iteration of their popular AdWords advertising program in February of 2002, and was worth over 100 billion dollars by the end of 2005. Corrections Welcome. ;-)

Thanks Aki for the props, skunk works(what is your name dude before we try social engineering on you?), CIO <http://www.cio.com/> acronym stands for Chief Information Officer is a publisher , part of the International Data Group<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDG>, and publishes a magazine targeted at CIOs and also does online ICT publishing. CIO East Africa <http://www.cio.co.ke/> is a franchise of CIO and does localised publishing targeting the East African region. CIO East Africa publishes a monthly magazine(available at leading supermarkets and news vendors) and operates an online news site too.