Remember Hakia? It's the here-today, likely-gone-tomorrow search engine which allows users to meet other users searching for the same topic. A frightening feature, to be sure. But it'd be worse if Hakia members actually had to meet each other in person. Starting with the obvious, here is a list of queries whose searchers you don't want to meet. (Or maybe you do. Pervert.)

For a while now, social-networking features have been to bubbly new websites what power windows, cupholders, and vanity mirrors used to be for new cars. Even GM can glue reflective plastic to the back of a cardboard visor. Likewise, a new site's service might not be actually useful, but it nonetheless feels obliged to offer the same bells and whistles as competitors. In other words, it allows you to sign up for spam, upload your picture and connect with other suckers. The latest example?

Am I the only one who still thinks "conversation" should mean "How's the family," "How 'bout them Yankees," and "Let's talk about our feelings" and not "I'm in bed with this company because..."? Federated Media (a competitor of Valleywag's parent company) started another "conversation" sponsored by one of the blog network's advertisers. In the last "conversation," bloggers wrote blurbs pushing Microsoft's slogan, "People Ready." The new blurbfest centers on how search services can win users' trust. The answer, according to "conversation" sponsor Hakia, seems to be "give them a poll to fill out and let them comment a bit." Bloggers including Techcrunch editor Michael Arrington and GigaOM manager Om Malik (who was supposedly sorry for his involvement in such a project) gave little quotes tailored to Hakia's message. None of this is evil, or even dishonest. It's just crap. The same kind of crap that supposedly led people to leave corporate-owned newspapers and TV for blogs that wouldn't spew it.

NICK DOUGLAS — When I hear someone saying they're the next Google, I wonder: Does this shit happen in other industries? Does Bob sit around Bob's Boise Brewery and say "I'm gonna make the next Bud Light! Yep! Bob Light, baby!" Actually, that probably happens. But that doesn't help the odds of these wannabe Google-killers. The following sites aren't just grad-school projects that wisely focused on a niche. They all think they're the next big thing in search, and they're all wrong.