Back in 2007, we wrote about Groovle, a site that lets you skin Google with your favorite image, and serves results through Google’s Custom Search. It seems that Google wasn’t much of a fan though: the search giant sought to take control over the domain name, alleging that it would confuse users. Today comes word that their request has been denied by the National Arbitration Forum, in what Groovle believes is only Google’s second such defeat.
Google initially sent Groovle an Email on July 29 demanding that they hand the domain over. In response to Google’s initial complaints, Groovle modified the site design to make it more distinct and added a disclaimer to explicitly say it was not affiliated with Google, but that wasn’t enough to placate them. It’s not hard to guess why Google was concerned. Groovle, while not simply a typo away from Google’s name, does share quite a few letters in common, and the primary purpose of the site is to search Google’s index. → Read More
Ontario based Groovle has a such a simple business model, it’s worthy of asking “why didn’t I think of that?” Groove uses Google Custom search in conjunction with picture hosting to offer custom Google search pages. Users have two options in terms of how a Groovle page looks; they can either select from a list of preexisting pages or upload their own picture. Groovle offers an extensive variety of ready to use pages in categories including celebrities, nature, space, and sport. Groovle makes its money from the search results generated by Google Custom Search, and given that those results are delivered by Google the business runs on a low cost, low barrier to succeed model. Sports fans, celebrity lovers, and anyone looking for a basic search oriented (ie one without widgets) custom start page who don’t want to create one themselves will like Groovle. → Read More
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