I think that the world is getting quite sick of products positioning themselves within the realm of meaningless new revision numbers.

In two press releases I read this morning the products I am about to talk about did just that.

Search 2.0?

On first glance this is no more than a Meta search engine with a slick interface. One second glance, I cannot it is much more than that. There is apparently more going on here, says Wookah’s press release:

Search 1.0 has:
- Sites ranked by algorithms and spiders
- Irrelevant results
- Search spam
- Many sites
- Many searches

Search 2.0 has:
- Pareto Principle (80/20 rule)
- Only the best sites
- No spam!
- Deep Search across multiple sites

I never say never and I love start-ups. I will keep my eye on this one, but for now, not sold.

Social Networking 2.0?

This technology is a bit more compelling to me, but I am not sure it is the product, or my own interpretation of the product that excites me.

In a less than pleasing interface, Zeptile is seeking to redefine Social Networking by thinking outside of the profile page. If I understand this correctly they are seeking to give people their own coordinate within a mosaic. Here is how it works:

• When you enter the network you become a Zeptile (not sure I want to be one of those)

• Along with your Zeptileship you get a zLoc

Every Zeptile has a zLoc, or Zeptile Location. It is the coordinate by which the Zeptile can be identified and located on the Social Networking Mosaic. A zLoc is basically a X/column and Y/row coordinate pair. zLocs are displayed in the form zLocX.zLocY (i.e. 511.511) where zLocX corresponds to the X/column coordinate and zLocY corresponds to the Y/row coordinate on the mosaic.

My zLoc is zLoc: 112.113…come find me

Now, to move away from negativity…

In theory I like what is being done here. In fact, it is very reminiscent of what has become of Second Life has become, and what Kaneva is doing (in a very roundabout way). While this social network is not 3D, it does give add a sense of space and place within a social network, and navigation throughout this network is not merely a series of hyperlinks.

Do I think that Zeptile will take off? Not unless they makes some serious changes to the interface and some really good partnerships, however this did stand out to me and I had to write about it.

Tags: social networking, search, search 2.0, web 3d, 3d, Wookah, Zeptile, zLoc, Mosaic, Second Life, Kaneva