Cuban vs. Google: It's On!

August 3, 2004 11:09 AM

Mark Cuban, who obviously just has too much time on his hands, is teaming up with Icerocket in an attempt to thwart Google for search engine dominance.
posted by Ufez Jones (22 comments total)

Maybe the dude can use his own search engine to find someone to cut his hair without the bowl?
posted by fenriq at 11:16 AM on August 3, 2004

Ripe for a Photoshop contest.
posted by dhoyt at 11:25 AM on August 3, 2004

Hey, Google is valuing itself at $30B. I would value Icerocket.com as 1/30th the usefulness of Google. That means that it's totally already worth like $1B. You wouldn't want a piece of that?
posted by Voivod at 11:43 AM on August 3, 2004

First Steve Nash. Now this.
posted by swift at 11:45 AM on August 3, 2004

Google kinda just happened dude.... good luck
posted by Satapher at 11:46 AM on August 3, 2004

This is a joke, right?
posted by gwint at 11:59 AM on August 3, 2004

thumbnail results is kind of a neat idea, but the thing is unbearably slow.
posted by angry modem at 12:04 PM on August 3, 2004

My first try had google in the search results. At least they aren't screening the results...
posted by sexymofo at 12:12 PM on August 3, 2004

It'll never work. Exhibit A:

"I icerocketed myself last night."
posted by Jart at 12:14 PM on August 3, 2004

There just isn't enough phallic imagery for my tastes. Sorry.
posted by Stan Chin at 12:17 PM on August 3, 2004

Okay, I take back that joking "1/30th the usefulness of Google" estimate. They appear to store all indexed URLs in lowercase. This means that any site which has case sensitive URLs will come up broken when you click the link from Icerocket.com. Wikis are a good example of where this can go wrong. Try doing an Icerocket.com search on "wiki" and check out all the broken links in multi-word wiki entries. Do they have any idea what they're doing? I found this by accident after about a minute of use. Dotcom days are here again...
posted by Voivod at 12:24 PM on August 3, 2004

btw, google.icq.com has thumb results too.
posted by bobo123 at 12:29 PM on August 3, 2004

Why do people think thumbnails of web pages in search results are a good idea? Can you really get anything useful from them?
posted by mkultra at 12:35 PM on August 3, 2004

mkultra: Don't underestimate the power of visual recognition.

You know how you visit a site, then forget it, then want to go back to it again later, but forgot to bookmark it? So you Google, and you click on 20 or 30 different sites till you recognize the one that you were looking for in the first place?

Leave out the clicking on 20 or 30 different sites step. That's what thumbnails are good for.

All things being equal, having thumbnails as an option would be the best solution.

Likely outcome? Google buys Icerocket (or steals the idea, provided its not patented somehow).

Either way, expect a thumbnail option on a google near you by 2006.
posted by Ynoxas at 1:08 PM on August 3, 2004

This Firefox extension gives thumbnails to Google.
posted by mr.marx at 1:15 PM on August 3, 2004

This is very interesting. I "icerocketed" myself and found a few entries that don't appear in google.

Doubly interesting because lately I've been getting 419 Nigerian Scam spams at an email address that very few people have. It turns out I used this address once at a small site for a B&B reservation in the UK. The data was somehow stored in the clear and picked up by one of the search engines (Wisenut?!) that icerocket scrapes.
posted by SteveInMaine at 1:48 PM on August 3, 2004

Gah. He was lucky enough to sell in the late 90s and kept most of his imaginary money after the bubble burst. That he even imagines that he could hit the lottery twice is either idiocy or ego, and since its Mark Cuban, probably both.
posted by ChasFile at 1:50 PM on August 3, 2004

It does have results not found by google. I just "ice-rocketed" myself as well (narcissitic and unimaginatve) only to find someone had put a short story I wrote online without my knowing! But then I realised it was put up by my old writing class, so that was fine. (Though weird - I didn't remember submitting that one.)
posted by jb at 2:49 PM on August 3, 2004

mofo cant even get someone to play defense for him

he couldnt get Shaq

and he can't even make it out of the second round of the playoffs.

someone will topple Google, just like Yahoo was toppled, but it wont be this guy.

his blog is occassionally interesting, however. he should stick to that.
posted by tsarfan at 3:16 PM on August 3, 2004

and he can't even make it out of the second round of the playoffs.

'02-'03, the Mavs lost in the Western Conf. Finals (i.e. 3rd Round). That was probably that core's best chance at a title. Stupid Spurs.

I do agree to encouraging his blogging though. Love it.
posted by Ufez Jones at 4:34 PM on August 3, 2004

His blog is awesome. If what he's written on it about the beginning and the progress of his career is remotely accurate, I'd say he deserves respect for basically starting with nothing and becoming filthy rich through some hard work.
posted by swank6 at 2:41 AM on August 4, 2004

I've probably said this before...but I love Mark. I reported to him at Audionet/broadcast before Yahoo bought it out. As bosses go, he's probably the favorite one I've ever had. Certainly the most energetic and he's constantly coming up with ideas. If just 1% of Mark's ideas come to fruition, he's still batting higher averages than most people.

He's had a lot of projects since AudioNet that have done well. He's got an HDTV thing, the sports team, donates vast amounts of time, resources and money to charities and business incubators.

Yeah, he's a little weird sometimes...and dealing with someone that "ON" all the time takes some energy and some skill...but as a rule, the safe money is never betting against him.
posted by dejah420 at 7:21 PM on August 5, 2004