Volunia, Italian Professor's Search Engine To Rival Google

Massimo Marchiori, a professor at the University of Padua in northeast Italy, has launched a new search engine, Volunia that aims to integrate search as well as social networking. Deriving from the Italian words volo(flying) and luna(moon), Volunia is the fruitful result of three years of hard work put in my Marchiori. Apart from speeding up the process of search, Volunia will also allow users to interact with registered users who are searching for similar content on the same web page.

Apparently, there is some history involved between Marchiori and Google, as Marchiori created the algorithm that was later used in Google. In the 1990s, Marchiori was teaching at MIT, Larry Page, the future founder of Google, approached him at the conference where he presented his algorithm titled 'HyperSearch'. Marchiori has been quoted as saying, "Page was fascinated by it and asked if he could use it. Since it was not patented, he used it in the best possible way."

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Essentially, the Volunia search engine is built of two main features. When a user enters a website,  the toolbar offers to create a personal map of the site with all its sections, putting the "volo" in Volunia in terms of “overflying the content”, as Marchiori intends it. The second feature is the “media” button which provides the user with an instant display of multimedia content to speed up the search. There is also the availability of social box which enables real-time interaction with other users on the site.

Marchiori named his new concept as Volunia as he wanted to highlight the quantum leap his social search engine delivers. The site was launched on Monday and is operational for registered users. Though, it will take a few tweaks here and there, Marchiori promises that it will be open to all users by next week.

Source: Volunia, Italy’s Answer to Google - Corriere della Sera Image Credit: #-Link-Snipped-#

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