IAC Launches Black Search Site

IAC's Black Web Enterprises Inc., the first business to be created by IAC rather than acquired, has launched it first product targeting the African-American market.

RushmoreDrive, a Web search site geared to black audiences opened to the public early Thursday morning. 

Johnny Taylor, chief executive of Black Web Enterprises, said the site aims to attract million of blacks, half of whom are regular Web users.

"What we have created is the first search engine for the black community," Taylor said ahead of the launch.

"It is not to be confused with a black search engine," he said. "One analyst described this as identity search. We have built this technology not for a black patent ... but for a technology that should work in any of the identity groups."

RushmoreDrive is based around IAC's ASK.com search technology. RushmoreDrive is ASK.com re-skinned with images of black people and maybe certain black sites ranking a little higher. They have also added user ratings to search results, a forum and job listings.

"Detour is our featured perspective on current news and other topics that matter to you, plus your comments, passion and point of view."

RushmoreDrive claims to have analyzed nearly five years of Ask data for the kind of information black users have been seeking, helping them to weigh the usefulness of sites they list on their search page.

Don't know how accurate those results will be since ASK only has 4% market share.

RushmoreDrive's interface is very visual which might appeal to a teen audience but the result are what matters and here is where RushmoreDrive fall's short.

I fail to fine any compelling reason to use this site for searching or anything else.

Just re-skinning a crappy search engine and adding some community features and job listings isn't enought to get me to use this service. RushmoreDrive really has nothing to offer me.

RushmoreDrive like Google, plans to offer custom search to potential partner sites.

I hate that name, RushmoreDrive. I'll give RushmoreDrive a try again in a couple weeks to see if I change my mind about the service.