The Newly Released RushmoreDrive Search Engine

RushmoreDrive is a new search engine just launched in April 2008 that adds a layer of specificity, just like Amazon, to a typical Google, Yahoo, or Ask search query. If you ask for a lookup, your mainstream answer will be sprinkled with value-added information. How many of us have clicked on at least one of those Amazon listings under "Customers who bought this item also bought..."? Sounds like a legitimate business plan right? It's called market segmentation. In other words, people searching online for muscle cars will also see links to information about NASCAR-scheduled events coming soon to their area. Since I don't care much about NASCAR, I typically won't see these links nor care about news articles, blogs, etc. that cover these topics. In the above context, the approach of RushmoreDrive makes good business sense and, most importantly, I am NOT offended. Again in the above context, I don't know ANYTHING about NASCAR values, lifestyle, history, or culture (I don't want to suggest, though, that there isn't lots of it). If RushmoreDrive decided to focus its online resources into areas of the country where NASCAR "people" lived, worked, and played, that would be fine with me. I could just click away to some other webpage or site.

But these are times when cable new programs re-loop segments of Whoopi Goldberg on the The View commenting on comments made by the Rev. Jesse Jackson ad nauseum. These are times when herds of "talking heads" in the news media regurgitate what they "decide" is "newsworthy" cud over and over and over... And the result?

I overreacted to reading about this new search engine because it focuses exclusively on the life-style, values, and cultural nuances of African Americans. A posting on the Huliq News blog (www.huliq.com) however helped me regain my orientation. The posting there differentiated between what is segregation, (in my opinion, a bad political policy) and what is segmentation (in my opinion, a good marketing technique). How many other people unfortunately will jump to the conclusion that RushmoreDrive is only for "THOSE" people rather than see it as yet another entrepreneurial attempt to add Amazonian flavor and profit to the apparently weak business of running an online search engine? Try this - replace NASCAR references in my introduction with Black or Hispanic or Asian or Eskimo or White; I am certain you catch my drift. If your blood pressure increases even a bit; take a deep breath, drink a glass of cool water, and rethink what Internet market segmentation is all about. Perhaps even rethink some of your personal attitudes. In all fairness, some cable news "talking heads" say that, especially in the United States of America, we have more IN COMMON with each other than we are different.