DuckDuckGo featured on Lifehacker

http://lifehacker.com/5546409/duckduckgo-is-a-search-engine-for-keyboard-ninjas

by jordanmessina • 16 years ago

55 39 16 years ago

lifehacker.com

ErrantX2• 16 years ago

No mention of the privacy aspect though! Shame

I wonder if that is interesting - or simply an oversight.

EDIT: they've edited it in since I read the story... (just checked the original tab I opened)

pmjordan3• 16 years ago

FTA: "It aims to be a Google competitor, providing a host of additional features the search engine giant is missing, like [...] keeping your searches anonymous."

ErrantX2• 16 years ago

Hmm, I could have sworn that wasn't there when I opened it (I did check because I was surprised not to see any mention)

pclark3• 16 years ago

Probably because common users aren't that interested in search privacy.

ComputerGuru• 16 years ago

DuckDuckGo just needs a better logo and a better name and it'd be major league. They've got the difficult part down, but there's no way any real company or serious non-hacker will take them seriously the way they are now.

I want a search engine whose design, name, logo, and style inspire me with confidence and reassurance. I want to see power, I want to see professionalism. I don't want to play games with a duck that lucks like it was drawn by an amateur. I think spending a mere 1k on design and branding will have an incredible impact on DDD now that it's really beginning to get off the ground and catch the eye of people outside the HN/Reddit communities.

pmjordan3• 16 years ago

I don't know. Initially, Google was far more playful than any of the other search engines of the time. Also "professional" design & branding deteriorates into "boring" far too easily. And boring is unlikely to be noticed. People are likely to remember the duck. If you google for 'duck search', DDG is the first result.

Just providing a counterpoint BTW. You may well be right.

jacquesm• 16 years ago

Let me repeat that separately just so it stands out, it makes the point more eloquently than this whole thread:

> If you google for 'duck search', DDG is the first result.

baddox• 16 years ago

Google is still playful. Their name still is a joke, even if it has become borderline genericized. Also, remember the Pacman ordeal just the other day? Not to mention the numerous Easter eggs for terms like "recursion."

grendel• 16 years ago

I think I heard these same arguments against google... DuckDuckGo is in good company.

ugh• 16 years ago

Really? I think DuckDuckGo’s brand is incredibly strong, I loved it the first time I saw it. You better stick out and be memorable if you have the balls to enter the search market. I don’t think looking professional (whatever that means) would help.

(The companies with great products on the web – YouTube, Twitter, Google, flickr, Dropbox and so on – in general all don’t have the kinds of professional logos pre-web companies – Mercedes, IBM, Microsoft, Apple and so on – have. Maybe that’s why professional-looking logos don’t manage to inspire much confidence in me on the web.)

alextgordon2• 16 years ago

You could say the same thing about Google, Bing, Yahoo, Ask, etc. In fact every single search engine I can think of has got a blatant disregard for appearing professional.

As ssp pointed out (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1226660) you could hardly find something less conspicuous than a duck face in a big red circle. In my view it's a great asset.

MikeCapone3• 16 years ago

This was discussed previously, and I think that the biggest difference is that Bing and Google are "silly non-specific" while DuckDuckGo is "silly specific", which means that when you think of it, it sounds kind of silly, and you know why and you have a mental picture of a duck or whatever in your head.

Google is kind of a weird word, but it didn't feel quite as silly even way back when it came out. Same with Bing.

kyro2• 16 years ago

When you think of Google, Bing, Yahoo, Amazon, Zappos, Ebay, Skype, Facebook, Twitter, etc, what comes to mind? To me, nothing at all. They don't invoke any particular image in my head. They sound cool, often silly, and are recognizable, but that's as far as they go. That's not the case with DDG, in my opinion. I think about the duck, start making childish associations with it, and always arrive at the same conclusion - that I will not be using it to replace Google. There's got to be a marketing concept/theory/term that describes this component of brand recognition.

albertk• 16 years ago

Thank you for saying that at the beginning. You are totally right.

epi0Bauqu3• 16 years ago

Design/branding seems hit or miss. As a counterpoint, check out this blog entry from today that someone just sent me: http://webworksandgraphics.com/blog/duck-duck-go/

kyro2• 16 years ago

Not sure how seriously you can take that critique when he/she thinks the magnifying glass is a magnet. :P

pclark3• 16 years ago

totally agree with this. also DuckDuckGo means nothing to non-US users, sounds utterly bizzare.

Sure Google, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves, Bing all sound fairly weird - but they were also "new" words with no previous connotations to normal people. Even the name Bing got some hate initially but it has mostly gone away now, DDG remains a name that misses with people. Isn't Duck Duck Go a playground game?

Sorry man, I love your site and actually use it as my default search, but the branding blows. I'm actually going to doodle a better brand for you.

CWuestefeld• 16 years ago

DDG remains a name that misses with people

I claim that DDG is a name that hits with people. However, it's a name that people think misses with other people. In other words, I think it's a matter of people imputing some overly-starched-shirt attitude onto others.

jrockway• 16 years ago

Yeah, they should really rename it to BikeshedBikeshedGo. The only question is... what color to make the bikeshed?

pook• 16 years ago

This is the Internet. Confidence and reassurance and professionalism are alien concepts to an entity envisioned, built, and maintained by unshaven and very odd people.

The Internet is based on the work of extremely silly people, who just happened to be formidable enough to make their iconoclasm the standard.

DuckDuckGo is exactly the kind of silly, eccentric name that reassures me of competence. Never trust a serious man if you want to change the world.

zavulon2• 16 years ago

Everything that you said is correct. However, the majority of people that use the Internet are different. I don't have any data to back this up, but all the non-tech people I've ever interacted with think that "unprofessional looking = untrustworthy"

duck• 16 years ago

That didn't seem to work for cuil... and based on how he has grown the site so far I think he knows what he is doing.

lionhearted• 16 years ago

I firmly disagree about changing the name - you want people having visceral reactions to your brand name, which means being different than everyone else. The fact that people DISLIKE Duck Duck Go is a good sign. The logo though? That might be worth changing maybe. I love the name though. (Well, actually, I initially disliked the name, but I remembered it - hence I like the name from a business branding perspective)

MikeCapone3• 16 years ago

Congrats Gabriel! Glad to see your efforts paying of (at least in mindshare) lately.

Keep adding good features (and taking away bad ones) and listening to your users and you should be golden.

I personally tend to agree with those that say that the name/logo is holding you back (I have a sense of humor and don't take it too seriously, but a lot of people are probably scared off), but it's your thing and you should take it into the direction that you feel will work best.

apphacker• 16 years ago

The new category thing is annoying, if I search for 'django' I don't even get a list of links (the top one should be the python django framework) I get a list of things named django. I have to scroll all the way to the bottom of a bunch of junk to get the django web framework link. Maybe make that category thing less aggressive or something one can turn off in the settings.

epi0Bauqu3• 16 years ago

Thx--I'm working on a setting to disable disambiguation, but I think you're missing the point. Those are the search results. The idea is you click on the one that is most relevant and then get "deep" results tailored to that particular meaning. The stuff at the bottom is meant only to serve you if none of the meanings are what you were looking for.

schwanksta• 16 years ago

Just wondering, have you tried getting ddg.com? My only real gripe is I find typing duckduckgo.com to be cumbersome for some reason, even though it's only 4 characters more than 'google'. It just doesn't seem to flow.

ronnier• 16 years ago

I really enjoy watching the progression of DDG and the traction it's gaining. I admire Gabriel Weinberg for working so hard towards it.

pclark3• 16 years ago

this. Gabriel has been awesome at feedback, really innovative from a product and marketing stand point, and has pursued this for over a year. Awesome.

And the karma widget remains one of my most favourite marketing products.

epi0Bauqu3• 16 years ago

Over two years now :)

balakk• 16 years ago

The only thing I'm annoyed about DDG is its over-reliance on Javascript. Now I'm no luddite; i enjoy the flexibility and power javascript brings.

However I think the first page of results should come with the page response. For people like me with crappy bandwidth, there is a noticeable lag before the first 10 results appear. I'm reasonably happy with the content though; it does an acceptable job of replacing google.

hswolff• 16 years ago

DDG's founder has officially won me over. On my little blog I keep (harrywolff.com) I made a post about Duck Duck Go and Gabe managed to find me and my post. Thank you Gabe. Keep up the very awesome work.

blub• 16 years ago

Please make a mobile version. With Opera mini the search box is larger than the screen and half of it is shown out of the screen when the page loads.

DuckDuckGo featured on Lifehacker

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