Broadcast.com founder and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is sponsoring the new Dallas-based Internet search engine IceRocket, which aims to take over where Google leaves off. IceRocket, which, like previous generations of metasearch engines, relies on some of its primary rivals ranging from Yahoo and Ask Jeeves' Teoma to smaller sites including LookSmart's WiseNut, is hoping to set itself apart with features such as more powerful image searching and an email-based service that can be used on handhelds and other mobile devices.
A feature still being tested enables cellphone or PDA users to send an email with a search term to the site and get an email back with the top five search results. Each search result provides a small thumbnail snapshot of the site it points to, which the company says will help users decide if they actually want to visit or not.
IceRocket chief executive Blake Rhodes said in an email interview that the company doesn’t need to recreate what Google is doing, instead, it will try to do well things that Google doesn't do well, to “out-Google Google”. On his Web log, on the other hand, Mark Cuban said he’s helping suggest features that would separate IceRocket from the pack, and that it’s an unique way for him to “design my own search engine”.
