Blekko, the world’s favorite upstart search engine, has made some major recent updates. One fun extra included is called “3 Engine Monte.” The feature invites users to choose their favorite SERP in a blind pick between Bing, Google, and Blekko.
How the Game Works
Blekko is asking you to pick your favorite SERP results from the page. Your options are coming from Bing, Google, and Blekko, but the names aren’t attached and each page is formatted identically.
Once you pick your preference, you get to see which SERP is which – and you’ll get some extra notations indicating which results Blekko has banned but that still appear on non-Blekko search results.
While users are prompted by Blekko to choose the results they like best (and, yes, Blekko is tabulating how often each search engine is selected), some have created a different game out of the 3 Engine Monte feature. For example, Michael Arrington of TechCrunch interpreted it as a game where “Your job is to pick the one you think is Blekko.” Those with a creative spirit are sure to come up with a variety of other ways to play.
For those curious as to the namesake of the new feature, it all comes from “three-card monte.” In three-card monte, a dealer gives you even money if you can follow and select a “target card” (usually the Queen of Hearts) as he or she mixes three cards around on the table.
Best known as a con, the three-card monte was used extensively as a way to cheat people out of their cash by using sleight of hand and hired “shills” that pretended to be players in order to build the confidence of the mark. The only real similarity between three-card and three-engine monte is that you have three shuffled selections.
Where to Play
You can reach the Monte page through a link at the bottom of Blekko’s home page or you can just add the “/monte” tag to the end of any query. You can see the comparative results for any query you see fit, but the responses are limited to the text links from each of the search sites.
At the very least, it’s a fun way to test what you think of the comparative ranking on Bing, Blekko, and Google – and it’s also quite a display of confidence for Blekko.