Personalized/social search provider Eurekster has launched several new community-based features to its swicki platform. The new tools enable users to ask and answer questions within their communities, and those results will be added into search results conducted by other users through the swicki. More details at ClickZ.
A Eurekster swicki uses index data from Yahoo, Ask, Feedster, and other specialized search engines. It adds value with behavioral re-ranking and collaborative filtering, to create results that are more relevant to a given community. It previously did this through implicit factors, using click stream analysis to analyze user behavior, which is reflected in search results and the “buzz cloud,” a display of recently searched keywords weighted by popularity.
The new features add explicit factors to the mix, engaging users to come in and contribute their expertise in a Yahoo Answers-type of way. Users can also write their own answer into the search results, which will be displayed once they are approved by the swicki owner.
Eurekster has also launched a swicki Ads service, which allows advertisers to buy ads on multiple swickis individually. Later this year, Eurekster will add a channel-based capability for advertisers to make category-based buys across similar groups of swickis.