Zakta launches SearchTeam.com collaborative search

In a time where social media has infiltrated almost every corner of the internet, it only makes sense that someone would create a social search engine.

Cincinnati web entrepreneur Sundar Kadayam has done just that, launching SearchTeam.com, a real-time collaborative search and curation engine. The engine is an outgrowth of his Zakta.com search engine. Launched in 2009, Zakta was developed as personal engine that allows editing, saving and categorizing of results.

SearchTeam.com takes personal search a step further by making it collaborative.

"We found that some of the most successful uses of Zakta.com were with small, focused groups collaborating with each other on curating information from the Web. As we observed this closely, we got the idea of baking in collaboration right into the process of searching and curating information," Kadayam says. "This led to the real-time collaborative search and curation capabilities you see in SearchTeam.com today."

SearchTeam.com has been in private BETA for the past year. Among the most practical uses observed so far are among students working on school research projects, families planning complex events or big vacations, and professionals collaborating on research and development projects, Kadayam says.

It allows members to create profiles in a "SearchSpace," where they can invite others to search with them. Results can be saved into topic folders and others can "like" and comment on topic results. SearchTeam also has a chat feature that allows for coordination of searches.

But one size does not fit all in the world of online searches. "The Social Search phenomenon is still in its infancy, and we are going to see a lot of innovation happen in this space in the coming years from the big search engines as well as startups," Kadayam says. "Zakta plans to introduce more innovations to the market in the coming years in this space."

Zakta is currently located in Blue Ash's Vora Innovation Center. It currently has several interns and part-time employers, with plans to expand with some full-time employees later this year. The company has received investment from CincyTech, Vora Ventures and some private angel investors, Kadayam says.

By Feoshia Henderson

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