To most of us, Google seems to be an unbeatable powerhouse, and even though they have their hands in a lot of projects at one time, their search engine is still their bread and butter. Not only is it extremely useful, but it’s also just as much a part of pop culture as anything else that you can think of. Because of this, when someone says that they can take on Google and beat their search results in certain respects, it’s hard to take them seriously. However, when this person is Jimmy Wales (the man behind Wikipedia), you have to at least give him a chance. His new open source search engine project is called Wikia, and it’s now available to start playing with.

Using the site right now is a nightmare because the results aren’t impressive at all, and the whole thing feels unfinished. With that said, this is just the start of something new. Once users begin to rate the results and submit supplementary content, then things will start to fall into place. Sure, this is probably going to take a long time, and Wikia may not prove to be truly useful anytime in the near future, but if the users stay committed, I think Jimmy and his team can eventually make their vision come true.