MC Hammer may not have the deep pockets or bench strength of Microsoft, Yahoo, or Google, but he still thinks he has a shot at taking them on in the search game with his own engine, WireDoo. In an interview with O'Reilly Media at the web 2.0 summit, Hammer says that WireDoo is focused on "relationship search," something that he thinks the major engines aren't very good at. He describes relationship search as a more natural way of human thinking — for instance, he says that if you were searching for schools in a certain area, you'd also want to get public info on school ratings, teacher credentials, or expulsion and truancy rates, instead of a generalized search result. WireDoo's motto is "search once and see what's related." 

While WireDoo has received an appropriately sized mountain of skepticism, Hammer does have a point — a quick Google search for "schools 20852" reveals a simple list of schools in the area, and not much in the way of additional contextual information. Whether Hammer will be the one to pull off the kind of relational search he describes is a different question entirely, but we have to give him some credit for clearly identifying an opportunity in search, and for having the gumption to tackle it. After all, success doesn't have to mean squeezing out any of the major players, and WireDoo might find itself a nice little niche if it works as promised. 

You can sign up for the WireDoo beta right now.

Image credit: Brian Solis (Flickr)