5 Questions with Blake Rhodes, CEO of IceRocket
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Written By Reprise Media | August 8, 2005 | Share This
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It would appear that IceRocket has a CEO that never sleeps. When Blake Rhodes and I first exchanged messages about the possibility of someone from his company doing a “5 Questions” with SearchViews I was amazed by his lightning quick responses with a personal touch. Turns out others have experienced the same.
Here I talk to Blake about the IceRocket/BlogScour divide, the longevity of the blog search medium, podcasting and more.
1. A recent visit to the IceRocket site shows that “search blogs” is now the default search setting. What was the reasoning behind this decision? How will it change when BlogScour is launched?
Our users really like what we are doing with the blog search and it has really taken off the past few months so we went ahead and made the change. Our users pretty much made the call for us. As far as BlogScour is concerned that will not change anything. BlogScour will be a blogs only site without all the other features we have on IceRocket like web and image search. No date has been set for the launch of BlogScour.
2. Steve Rubel recently predicted the extinction of blog search, saying that the medium will come to an end once a major engine learns how to balance relevancy with recency and popularity. Do you agree with this statement?
Steve Rubel is a great guy and a good friend of mine and he has one hell of a blog. Do I think blog search will be extinct? No, I don’t see that happening. I think we will have to keep improving our blog search and adding quality features and the rest should take care of itself. There is a lot of room for blog search to grow, people are just now finding that they can search for blog content.
There are different types of search and there always will be. If I want to buy a camera and I know which one I want, then I do a web search. If I’m looking to get some feedback on my company or a local restaurant, IceRocket blog search is the way to go. Blogs offer a very honest opinion of things and that is extremely valuable.
3. IceRocket seems to be adding new features on a daily basis. What are a few that are in the pipeline and what can you tell me about the company’s long-term strategy? Is it to compete with the larger services, get acquired, or something else?
We are working on a few new features, nothing I can really talk about at the moment. We want to compete with everyone and provide quality services that people use. We aren’t thinking about acquisitions or anything like that, providing a great user experience is what I am thinking about.
4. Mark Cuban recently downplayed the potential of podcasts as a revenue source. Do you share his view? Are there any plans to incorporate podcasts into IceRocket’s search functionality?
I agree with Mark. I think it is going to be very hard for people to make money off of podcasts. Sure you can make a few bucks, but can people make a fulltime gig out of it? To me it seems unlikely. We don’t have any plans right now to incorporate podcasts into our search but you never know 
5. You said in an interview with Lara Stella of Metrix Media that you often use IceRocket’s “Find a Friend” feature to engage in direct interactions with IceRocket users. What’s the most unusual or compelling encounter you’ve had to date?
I use the IceRocket blog search every single day to interact with our users. If someone blogs about IceRocket, they will surely get an email or call from me. I’ve met a lot of great people that way and will continue to. I haven’t had a lot of unusual encounters yet, maybe that is around the corner.
Topics: Interviews |
IceRocket is the real deal. These guys have a big future.