USV invests in Duck Duck Go(usv.com)
usv.com
USV invests in Duck Duck Go
http://www.usv.com/2011/10/duck-duck-go.php
59 comments
Congrats on the funding, and looking forward to see which directions you take Duck Duck Go next! I think DDG is a great example that there's still lots of room for different approaches and philosophies in the search space.
Did Google pay you to say this?
Unless you figure that's he's likely at work now probably not.
Nope.
And that's why we love you, Matt. (seriously)
This is exactly why I(we) have the highest respect for you Matt.
We expect nothing less than such respect & openness to congratulate competition from you.
My first thought as I read above comment was "you would ignore it" and then I see your one word response. :)
We expect nothing less than such respect & openness to congratulate competition from you.
My first thought as I read above comment was "you would ignore it" and then I see your one word response. :)
For me, the killer Google lockin is autocomplete-with-suggest in Chrome.
I've come to completely rely on Google suggest as I type search queries into my Chrome address bar.
I find that particularly when looking up API calls, I don't even need to execute a search, I just need to rely on the wisdom of what everyone else on the Internet is searching for.
Also, if just looking for the domain name for a company, you don't have to execute a search, just start typing the company name. That skips the whole results page, saving precious seconds hundreds of times per day.
I just tried switching to DDG and lasted all of 5 minutes because the lack of autocomplete.
I've come to completely rely on Google suggest as I type search queries into my Chrome address bar.
I find that particularly when looking up API calls, I don't even need to execute a search, I just need to rely on the wisdom of what everyone else on the Internet is searching for.
Also, if just looking for the domain name for a company, you don't have to execute a search, just start typing the company name. That skips the whole results page, saving precious seconds hundreds of times per day.
I just tried switching to DDG and lasted all of 5 minutes because the lack of autocomplete.
Thx! We're working on auto-complete, but you can get Google autocomplete w/ DuckDuckGo here: http://ddgg.nfriedly.com/
I doubt auto-complete should be your #1 focus...
There is a huge opportunity now more than ever to take over search.
The real goal of a search engine is to provide relevant results. Google has 100% lost site of this and this is where you and the rest of the players have an opportunity.
Make your results 100% unbiased. Google's results are littered with their own biased content coming from Places, Youtube, Google Books, etc.
No one wants to see that. Google has lost site of the user experience as they need to grow revenues. It will ultimately come as a cost to them.
There is a huge opportunity now more than ever to take over search.
The real goal of a search engine is to provide relevant results. Google has 100% lost site of this and this is where you and the rest of the players have an opportunity.
Make your results 100% unbiased. Google's results are littered with their own biased content coming from Places, Youtube, Google Books, etc.
No one wants to see that. Google has lost site of the user experience as they need to grow revenues. It will ultimately come as a cost to them.
You seem to be getting down-voted. Maybe it's the harsh tone on what they should not focus on. But I agree with your second point. I've noticed a decline in Google's search result quality. I suppose a large part of that is SEO. Perhaps DDG can find better ways to counteract it.
I agree with autocomplete. I created a habit in college of using Google as calculator. It was the fastest way to use and convert units like astronomical units and solar masses. My wife and I switched to DDG for several months (Nov 10 - July 11), but the lack of autocompute calculations drove me away. It's a ridiculous thing to want in a search engine, but there it is.
Autocompletion is _the_ primary reason I switched to Chrome. It Just Works, even going so far as to learn it should switch from maps.google.com to maps.google.com.au when I type "maps". It wasn't too long before the AU site went from the second suggestion to the first. This saves me tons of typing every single day.
I'm just trying to understand this move.. DDG has been running with ~1 dev for 3 years.. I know that they were adding a second dev, but why raise capital? I don't see what this gets them, over continuing as a lifestyle bus.
Using Yahoo BOSS or the Microsoft search feed, anyone can build a fully functional, highly relevant "search engine" in a couple of weeks. "Search engine" is really a metasearch engine. Given enough traffic, you can syndicate a sponsored link feed and generate 3-4 cents per search. In principle, it is a great business. The place where all have failed is in the non-coerced acquisition of users -- everybody has to pay for users somehow, and by the time you've bought a one-time user you are forced to give them a terrible product (all ads, no quality).
What Gabriel has figured out and no one else has is how to build a search brand that people trust and are willing utilize. He seems to have a loyal core of users that come to his site without him paying on a per-search basis. Search quality, as perceived by the user, in as much about brand trust as it is about algorithmic quality. Too many companies focus on tech first and hope that the brand trust will come later (SearchMe, Blekko). Gabriel has actually invented a viable search business model. That's much more novel than his technology.
The interesting question is whether DuckDuckGo's organic user acquisition model can scale with additional resources. They put up one billboard in San Francisco and got a huge ROI -- will that work elsewhere?
What Gabriel has figured out and no one else has is how to build a search brand that people trust and are willing utilize. He seems to have a loyal core of users that come to his site without him paying on a per-search basis. Search quality, as perceived by the user, in as much about brand trust as it is about algorithmic quality. Too many companies focus on tech first and hope that the brand trust will come later (SearchMe, Blekko). Gabriel has actually invented a viable search business model. That's much more novel than his technology.
The interesting question is whether DuckDuckGo's organic user acquisition model can scale with additional resources. They put up one billboard in San Francisco and got a huge ROI -- will that work elsewhere?
You and I likely don't have access to the information necessary to understand the move.
Gabriel's been a patient bootstrapper for years and I doubt he'd raise capital on a whim. I'm sure he's got a solid plan for the money, which he doesn't have to make public.
Gabriel's been a patient bootstrapper for years and I doubt he'd raise capital on a whim. I'm sure he's got a solid plan for the money, which he doesn't have to make public.
Raising capital lets them hire additional people.
Love what Gabriel's doing with DDG.
Assuming Apple maintains its policy of only allowing the Big 3 (Google, Bing, Yahoo) as default search engines in iOS, anyone know a way to manually add custom search engines?
I know DDG has an app, but it's not an ideal solution for everyday use.
Assuming Apple maintains its policy of only allowing the Big 3 (Google, Bing, Yahoo) as default search engines in iOS, anyone know a way to manually add custom search engines?
I know DDG has an app, but it's not an ideal solution for everyday use.
>Assuming Apple maintains its policy of only allowing the Big 3 (Google, Bing, Yahoo) as default search engines in iOS
I know I will probably get downvoted for this, but here you have another glaring example why closed and locked systems are retarded and should be frowned upon by each and every sane man.
I know I will probably get downvoted for this, but here you have another glaring example why closed and locked systems are retarded and should be frowned upon by each and every sane man.
Each and every sane man? I don't think so. The number of people that want to use DDG is still tiny, for now. So for a great many people, the tradeoff for something that "just works" (and my iPhone "worked" better than my current Android phone) is worth it.
The fact that you are willing to trade away freedom for meaningless and short-term convenience does not necessarily qualify you as a sane man.
Also, "blocks basic functionality for absolutely no reason whatsoever" is not - or rather, should not - be in any definition of "just works".
Also, "blocks basic functionality for absolutely no reason whatsoever" is not - or rather, should not - be in any definition of "just works".
Good grief.
"trade away freedom for meaningless and short-term convenience"
Is such a loaded sentence I don't even know where I am supposed to start. What, exactly, is the definition of "meaningless" here?
Customising your search engine beyond a choice of search providers that >95% of users use is not basic functionality. Not by any definition. Apple have demonstrated time and time again that they DO cater for the majority (whether the majority know what they want at the time or not).
Yes, Apple locks stuff down. If you don't like it, don't buy an Apple product. This is not a complex issue. If someone considers it a more valuable use of their time to have a device that works better but with fewer options, that is their choice. They are not insane.
"trade away freedom for meaningless and short-term convenience"
Is such a loaded sentence I don't even know where I am supposed to start. What, exactly, is the definition of "meaningless" here?
Customising your search engine beyond a choice of search providers that >95% of users use is not basic functionality. Not by any definition. Apple have demonstrated time and time again that they DO cater for the majority (whether the majority know what they want at the time or not).
Yes, Apple locks stuff down. If you don't like it, don't buy an Apple product. This is not a complex issue. If someone considers it a more valuable use of their time to have a device that works better but with fewer options, that is their choice. They are not insane.
> What, exactly, is the definition of "meaningless" here?
Convenience means nothing without freedom.
> Customising your search engine beyond a choice of search providers that >95% of users use is not basic functionality.
Oh yes it is. Every sort of customization and configuration is basic functionality, and there is absolutely zero reason to deny it to the user. Worse, you (and many others) excuse this stupidity with some bullshit marketing mumbo jumbo that probably not even SJ himself believed, and I'm honestly sad to see how well it seems to have worked.
>If you don't like it, don't buy an Apple product.
This isn't about buying or not buying an Apple product. This isn't even about Apple specifically. This is about the atrocity that are closed systems, and the need for them to vanish into history and never come up again.
Convenience means nothing without freedom.
> Customising your search engine beyond a choice of search providers that >95% of users use is not basic functionality.
Oh yes it is. Every sort of customization and configuration is basic functionality, and there is absolutely zero reason to deny it to the user. Worse, you (and many others) excuse this stupidity with some bullshit marketing mumbo jumbo that probably not even SJ himself believed, and I'm honestly sad to see how well it seems to have worked.
>If you don't like it, don't buy an Apple product.
This isn't about buying or not buying an Apple product. This isn't even about Apple specifically. This is about the atrocity that are closed systems, and the need for them to vanish into history and never come up again.
There was also a time when number of people using Google were tiny.
How would Google come to be what it is today, if the OS vendors of that era had out rightly blocked them?
How would Google come to be what it is today, if the OS vendors of that era had out rightly blocked them?
You can get a different browser and change your search engine. It’s no problem.
Unfortunately, there isn't an easy solution for iOS that I know of without jailbreaking.
Easy solution is to use a non-default browser, such as iCab.
The dedicated app you've got is somewhat clunky, but it could be made a lot cooler if it was purposed not to "access DDG", but use DDG to "make research easier" or "look up that term". That would entail caching some of the results, maybe formatting a-la Readability, sorting them, bookmarking (with the help of a third-party service, e.g. Pinboard.in).
I have the app on the first home screen on all of my devices, but I don't use it all that often, because it is slow, because there's not much I can do with the results, and because it's totally useless without a solid uplink. Ideally, I would prefer it to keep the results of old searches and allow me to open them in other apps or review them later from another device, cf. nahodki.yandex.ru & google.com/history.
> Unfortunately, there isn't an easy solution for iOS that I know of without jailbreaking.
Is there really an easy solution with jailbreaking?
The dedicated app you've got is somewhat clunky, but it could be made a lot cooler if it was purposed not to "access DDG", but use DDG to "make research easier" or "look up that term". That would entail caching some of the results, maybe formatting a-la Readability, sorting them, bookmarking (with the help of a third-party service, e.g. Pinboard.in).
I have the app on the first home screen on all of my devices, but I don't use it all that often, because it is slow, because there's not much I can do with the results, and because it's totally useless without a solid uplink. Ideally, I would prefer it to keep the results of old searches and allow me to open them in other apps or review them later from another device, cf. nahodki.yandex.ru & google.com/history.
> Unfortunately, there isn't an easy solution for iOS that I know of without jailbreaking.
Is there really an easy solution with jailbreaking?
sure, SSH to your iOS device and add/edit a .plist entry in your editor of choice
Use a different browser. I use iCab and it has DuckDuckGo as a search option built in. There are also lots of other good things, like modules to post to delicious/pinboard/read it later.
I'm very pleased for Duck Duck Go. Lots of things about Google are frustrating, and it's great to have an alternative.
They're not quite there, but I hope they manage it soon.
They're not quite there, but I hope they manage it soon.
Out of curiosity, what are your frustrations?
I have used DDG and found it to be amazing for some searches early on. I felt the same about Wolfram Alpha. Both still seem awesome in their own way, but I haven't been frustrated enough to switch from Google as my default search.
I will say that as I've done more development, I've added more of my own direct site searches to Firefox as keywords for sites like StackOverflow, Wikipedia, Youtube and the Rails API. Searching said sites becomes "ctrl-L, so/wp/yt/railsapi <search term>". If I ever see myself having to dev on separate machines, I'd learn the DDG keywords for API searches.
I have used DDG and found it to be amazing for some searches early on. I felt the same about Wolfram Alpha. Both still seem awesome in their own way, but I haven't been frustrated enough to switch from Google as my default search.
I will say that as I've done more development, I've added more of my own direct site searches to Firefox as keywords for sites like StackOverflow, Wikipedia, Youtube and the Rails API. Searching said sites becomes "ctrl-L, so/wp/yt/railsapi <search term>". If I ever see myself having to dev on separate machines, I'd learn the DDG keywords for API searches.
You used to be able to group search terms using () on Google. It appears that you can't do that any longer.
Google will sometimes substitute words for you, and say "did you mean X?". That's gently frustrating; I'm sure it's great for most people but not for me.
Worse, sometimes google will sub words and say "Search for X instead of Y".
Sometimes, and this is what really bugs me, is you'll include three or four words in the search term, and Google will silently drop one. I only find out when I open the URL, and having wasted a few minutes noodling around the document, I try to find my word using a ctrl F and I discover it's not there.
Here's an example (that appears to work now): (I'm fully aware that maybe I'm doing it wrong, and I welcome advice about best current practice for Google searching. (For example, did Google ever group words in brackets? When did they stop doing that?))
When I was trying it the first page of results did not contain the word temperature - obviously very annoying.
Google will sometimes substitute words for you, and say "did you mean X?". That's gently frustrating; I'm sure it's great for most people but not for me.
Worse, sometimes google will sub words and say "Search for X instead of Y".
Sometimes, and this is what really bugs me, is you'll include three or four words in the search term, and Google will silently drop one. I only find out when I open the URL, and having wasted a few minutes noodling around the document, I try to find my word using a ctrl F and I discover it's not there.
Here's an example (that appears to work now): (I'm fully aware that maybe I'm doing it wrong, and I welcome advice about best current practice for Google searching. (For example, did Google ever group words in brackets? When did they stop doing that?))
+("os x" OR "osx") +temperature +(console OR "command line")
When I was trying it the first page of results did not contain the word temperature - obviously very annoying.
I know what you mean about dropping words. If Google did group by brackets, it was a feature I never learned (though I haven't browsed the guide too often). That search style reminds me of Craigslist.
What's interesting is that I pasted in your query and the first page had all but 2 results with temperature in it. Strange.
What's interesting is that I pasted in your query and the first page had all but 2 results with temperature in it. Strange.
I tried Duck Duck Go a bit today, switching it as my default search engine for chrome. I liked the search results, they definitely seemed better -- but the major feature it lacked was being able to get instant results right in the search bar.
I do a lot of on the fly math in the search bar because of my job and Duck Duck Go just totally disrupts my work flow for that, so I ended up switching back to Google after the day was over.
I do a lot of on the fly math in the search bar because of my job and Duck Duck Go just totally disrupts my work flow for that, so I ended up switching back to Google after the day was over.
Just offering a show of support for this Philadelphia startup. Congrats to Gabe and team.
I'd like to see more search engines come into the picture, but from using this, I'm not sure I understand how the results are more relevant than what Google provides.
If you type in the name of someone well known, you get a box with some info about them - mostly from wikipedia,but couple of other sources. If you are relatively unknown, the results are the typical linkedin, spoke.com, myliving, etc. etc.
For someone to really switch over from Google, the results cannot be as good as. Bing was as good as, and it hasn't really worked out so well for them. With as good as - there's no compelling reason to switch. It has to be substantially better, and I don't see it but I could be completely wrong. I'd be happy for someone to reply to this with example search terms where the results from DDG are far better than what Google provides.
For someone to really switch over from Google, the results cannot be as good as. Bing was as good as, and it hasn't really worked out so well for them. With as good as - there's no compelling reason to switch. It has to be substantially better, and I don't see it but I could be completely wrong. I'd be happy for someone to reply to this with example search terms where the results from DDG are far better than what Google provides.
Just had my very own aha! moment while searching for my name with DDG. Excellent investment.
This is great news! I have tried to wean myself from the Google teat several times over the past couple of years without success. DDG has been the one that has gotten me closest and with the latest Google focus stealing madness I'm giving it another go.
I just performed a search on DDG and I can use my keyboard arrow keys in a sane manor again. So far, so good!
I just performed a search on DDG and I can use my keyboard arrow keys in a sane manor again. So far, so good!
You can even go back to Google with "!g search term" (without quotes). Useful also for Google images with !gi and similar things.
Congrats, Gabriel.
If you switch to DDG but still wonder what G might have shown as a result, here's a little extension for Chrome that will show G's results (disclaimer: I'm the author).
http://raivoratsep.com/177/duckduckgo-transition-assistant/
Excellent investment. Love ddg
Gabriel is perhaps the most principled, friendly, fast thinking entrepreneur in tech today. Awesome to see this investment and, as a DDG user, excited to see how the team will take it to the next level.
[deleted]
Congratulations! And welcome to you and DDG to the USV family.
Is DDG still just one person? I assume he'll be building a bigger team then right?
Very cool that this is the Philly area, hopefully he doesn't move elsewhere.
Very cool that this is the Philly area, hopefully he doesn't move elsewhere.
We are a few people now, though officially just two employees: http://ye.gg/inbound
No plans to move. In fact, we're renting our first office in Paoli, PA (right off SEPTA/Amtrak) starting in Dec.
No plans to move. In fact, we're renting our first office in Paoli, PA (right off SEPTA/Amtrak) starting in Dec.
Congrats Gabriel! You're a real inspiration.
Gabe, we're all really proud of you, and happy for this next great step. Congrats.
Hooray!
I know there's a lot involved with changing but I recommend not necessarily a change of the brand DuckDuckGo but the domain name. It really ... seriously and I am not exaggerating, it's DuckDuckGo.com is unbearably uncomfortable to type. Now that you have funding, considering getting DDG.com or duckgg.com or something.. just not the full name.
FYI. Google.com is really easy to type.
Update: Thanks for pointing out ddg.gg
FYI. Google.com is really easy to type.
Update: Thanks for pointing out ddg.gg
I'd say that's even worse. Look, if the tech is good enough it should survive a total rebrand. That's what they need right now. Without it, if they're too arrogant/stuckup/cocky/egotistical to make the change they're f'd anyway.
It's no longer a polite suggestion, it's a necessity. If they want to take the next step, they will need to rebrand and now is the perfect time to do it.
It's no longer a polite suggestion, it's a necessity. If they want to take the next step, they will need to rebrand and now is the perfect time to do it.
Why do they need a rebrand?
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I remember Gabriel talking about trying to buy ddg.com a long time ago, but the company was unwilling to sell the domain at all...
Well, there's http://ddg.gg/
Awesome! Now you just need to redirect DuckDuckGo.com to DDG.GG =) so everyone knows this super secret awesome url.
The funny thing is that DuckDuckGo will at some point have to ditch their "Carbon Ads" in favor of Google's Paid Ad Feed. Basically, DDG will become a super affiliate of Google.