Jookster v. Wink

Jookster‘s search engine launched yesterday. Like Wink, Jookster is aiming to provide more relevant search results by putting user-generated bookmarked links above normal results.

Unlike Wink, which allows users to add significant metadata to bookmarked pages (tags and reviews), Jookster determines relevance of bookmarked queries solely based on a keyword analysis of content on the bookmarked page.

Any web page may be bookmarked, or “Jooked” by users. No additional metadata is requested at the time of bookmarking. These results are shows above normal search results on Jooked.

A key part of the service is associating with friends. When you perform a search, you have the option of determining who’s bookmarks are also included – just you, friends of friends, one more level out, etc.

The Jookster idea is great, but the lack of metadata associated with the bookmarks (particularly tags) means it will not return results nearly as relevant as Wink results. I also question whether users will have any real incentive to give up browser real estate to yet another bookmarklet, and bookmark pages.

John Cook also writes about Jookster today.