MC Hammer Previews His WIREDoo Search Engine To Skeptical Media Coverage
MC Hammer previewed a search engine project at the Web 2.0 Summit yesterday called WIREDoo which is in early development. He mentioned that this is one of a number of projects with which he is involved and that he works regulary with young CEOs and startups. It's an interesting business move for Hammer, though I find the name choice rather surprising.
MC Hammer Previews WIREDoo at Web 2.0 Summit
MC Hammer appeared yesterday at the Web 2.0 Summit to present a preview of the WIREDoo search engine that I believe marks his first business project outside arts, entertainment, fashion or sports. WIREDoo is described as focusing on "deep search" or "relationship search." Basically, as he demonstrates in the above demo, one enters a query such as "90210" and the results include related information such as area schools, homes, crime rate, community and shopping.
WIREDoo sounds like a potentially useful search engine, though it's difficult to evaluate the project without using it given that's it still under development and the design aspects haven't been introduced. However, the name is awful and is generally being presented in tech coverage as WireDoo with some humorous asides.
As is all too often the case when rappers appear at tech conferences, his presentation was treated by many in tech media as a joke with such lines as "Somehow ending up on stage" (John Battelle invited him, doh!) and "One of the odder bits of news" (cause previewing a search engine with which you're involved at a major tech conference is, like, odd).
Nevertheless, the tech press coverage was not nearly as dismissive as when he unveiled DanceJam at a major tech conference in 2008 before exiting successfully in 2009. Still, many folks in the tech world seem to have difficulty comprehending the presence of rappers at tech conferences though they don't seem to trip on Ashton Kutcher who doesn't have the broad technology experience in studio settings of these men. Wonder what makes them different?
In any case, in addition to an awful name, Hammer did not reveal a domain and wiredoo.com, from which I took the above logo, doesn't say it's a search engine, only that it's in "pre-Beta". However, I'm pretty sure that's it though they definitely missed an opportunity to get a lot of links from tech media.
Apparently we'll be hearing about more such startups involving Hammer based on some comments after the presentation shown in the above video. He mentions that he's working with a number of companies in a brief bit of chit chat with John Battelle as shown at the end of the video on The BrainYard.
Hypebot contributor Clyde Smith is a freelance writer and blogger. He maintains a business writing hub at Flux Research and also blogs at This Business of Blogging. To suggest music services and related topics for review at Hypebot, please contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.
