Colin Pape announces Presearch mainnet launch with 65,000 nodes

0:01i'm ashton addison from block west capital for investmentpitch media and today on the crypto coin show we have colin pape founder and ceo of pre-search colin welcome back to the show and thank you for taking the time today thanks for having me at ashton appreciate it you're very welcome let's dive into the world of search engines incorporating decentralization blockchain uh

0:22transparency honesty all of those things that we want in in searching throughout the crazy internet that we live in and pre-search has built some amazing initiatives towards making the world a better place through search engines and i'd love for you to kick off our conversation uh for those who didn't see our first interview you know just an overview of some of the solutions that

0:43you and your team have built at pre-search and then we'll dive into the latest updates awesome yeah i appreciate it so so yeah the vision for pre-search is a decentralized search engine driven by the community kind of by the people for the people and uh you know utilizing open source technology and enabling the community to play an active role in both

1:06the the information that is is accessed through the search engine as well as kind of the economic value of uh that that search opportunity which is is quite massive when you look at google and the 100 billion dollars a year in revenue that they bring in through their kind of simple ad platform uh there really is a lot of economic value and so just looking at how we can

1:29uh you know funnel that back into uh kind of this alternative economy a parallel kind of economy that uh ultimately i think many of us in the crypto space are trying to build and uh and yeah it's it's been going really well uh really grateful for the community support really excited about the uh people that have kind of uh you know joined pre-search and uh and

1:56become active within the the community and within the ranks and uh we've got a pretty significant development that we just uh shipped out last week and uh and yeah just pushing forward on the uh decentralization front amazing colin and yeah um you know with search engines being like the landing page of the internet you know we start here uh it's important for people to

2:20start off on the on the correct foot right and i feel like um now more and more as people are waking up um on on the truth of the internet and realizing that we need to be the ones in control and not having the search engines monetizing our data and using us as numbers more people are looking for like the proper search engine that's willing to respect the people that are actually

2:42using it and i feel like research falls right into that category of you know utilizing the ethos of blockchain and decentralization and um giving the people what they need without taking from them yeah it's it's really uh the the vision i think for the for the project and i mean i i've been around the internet for for quite a while and i really remember

3:03the early days and and kind of how people were excited that this was kind of a new space and uh the ability for uh us all to communicate directly and freely and and to have all these different you know properties and different kind of channels that you could access really without interference and then at some point along the way you know we ended up

3:26kind of back into this walled garden uh scenario uh where it's you know big tech there's there's you know a handful of players that have all the network effects and uh they've ended up uh steering us in a direction that is i think kind of counter to the the ethos of the early internet and uh they do seem to be all about extracting as much value as possible from the users and uh

3:51and controlling you know what information they see and uh in some cases supporting uh different you know biases or agendas that maybe the users aren't aware of or or wouldn't support if they were aware of them and uh and yeah so if we can come up with a way to to put that power back into the hands of the the people who are uh utilizing the the platform and enable them to kind of

4:19you know look under the hood and and participate in that that process and in the governance uh we think that yeah this is uh more of kind of the the public utility that uh the the internet needs and deserves rather than having you know a single company have 92 percent market share but really have kind of you know totally different interest than the actual users

4:41uh so so yeah it's one of those things it feels like it's a really important uh undertaking and uh need to ensure that that we live up to uh that potential definitely colin and it's a huge undertaking but it looks like your team has been making great strides and i saw in in the most recent update about this mainnet launch and like a huge announcement from

5:04pre-search looks like you're taking the big huge next step in growing the platform and i'd love to hear more on that mainnet launch how that went and what that means for the future of searching on the internet yeah so it's it's been just amazing really to see the community's support we launched a test net uh towards uh the end of uh 2020 and uh it basically

5:29enables people to install software on a computer or on a server there's a lot of people that are using these like virtual servers uh that you can get in kind of data centers around the world and uh as they run this software it enables them to connect to the the pre-search network and basically make available to the network the processing or the the storage or or the

5:54bandwidth that that individual computer has and in return we have the ability to basically allocate tasks to it and then to reward the people who are operating those those nodes and that software uh with pre-search cryptocurrency the pre-token and so we we've kind of gone from you know having a lot of the infrastructure uh you know running in more of a traditional data

6:21center environment and if you look at like you know regular search engines they have these massive data centers they have extreme control really over all aspects of uh the information and uh that that whole kind of uh you know technical uh process and and in this case uh rather than then you know kind of create that big you know geographic footprint somewhere and

6:45and kind of have all these significant ties to the legacy financial system legacy uh you know technology systems uh we now have access to uh there's there's over 65 000 user nodes uh that people have contributed to the network yeah it's really uh quite quite impressive uh what the community has uh has done and uh so that now provides us with kind of this foundation we're currently using

7:11the nodes largely to uh you know kind of access information from multiple sources that exist out on the internet different search engines databases apis but now that we have that infrastructure in place it's enabling us to start taking the next step so running decentralized crawlers doing indexing searching indexes and and really kind of all the different uh technical needs

7:36of you know building out an independent open source search engine that now has that infrastructure to to run on that really has almost no ties to kind of the legacy financial uh system and the legacy technical system we're basically you know uh rewarding people in in cryptocurrency and uh they have the ability just to install this uh you know node software and uh

8:00spin up servers and and start powering the network and so yeah it's kind of that that foundational infrastructure that the project needs for all the next steps uh that it's building and we've been really fortunate we've got a great cto trey granger uh very involved in the open source search uh you know community and movement and uh he's kind of had this vision for for how

8:23this could be done and in a way where you know it it's very usable and uh it's it's you know very comparable to uh regular search experience it's just you know more private and uh uh you know there are a couple of you know minor trade-offs uh for some there there had been speed in the past now that we have this new decentralized network uh people are able to connect to

8:47local nodes so it's actually sped up considerably for people that are global users versus north american uh but uh but yeah we've got uh a pretty exciting path ahead and this was definitely a really big step and the community has really come together in a huge way to power this platform wow that's incredible to hear colin and yeah i don't think a lot of people

9:11realize uh when amazon or google has just like a warehouse full of all of their servers that's really a single point of failure as well you know they're controlling the internet through this one giant building and if something happens there um you know they're the ones in control but to have over 65 000 usernodes in the announcement you know from the launch

9:33just came in the past week or so to already have that many people having it decentralized and be able to um be a part of the next biggest uh you know wave of web 3 and like the future of search engines for everyone to become a part of it um have a say and be rewarded for it as well i feel like is this a complete revolution yeah it it really is a whole different

9:59paradigm for for research and uh it is you know the the beauty of search is that it's something that people do so frequently it is possible to build a habit uh around uh a different search engine uh there's a lot of you know really interesting kind of web three projects but like you might do them so infrequently that it's tough to actually build a habit and switch over to it and

10:23so people just end up falling into kind of the traditional uh big tech framework but with search you know people do it multiple times a day we have the ability uh for you either to install a you know private browser private uh search experience on your mobile device there are browser extensions uh and you can kind of switch it and then start using it and we've got people that have

10:46been using it since 2018 and it's their primary search engine i mean i can tell you myself i i don't use google anymore i don't uh you know need to uh really support big tech in that way i use pre-search and then i use multiple search engines within that uh environment as far as you know kind of niche search engines uh sometimes i might be you know doing ether scan

11:08lookups and that's kind of a search experience or i may be you know searching our our crm system uh customer relationship management system for like my other business and uh it's just kind of a an easy you know way to uh really uh direct your query and get uh quick results but but yeah overall it's uh it's pretty neat just to see how people have uh have

11:34come together behind this and i've been able to you know shift to over a million uh you know users a month that are using the platform uh 3.8 million registered users and uh and yeah just kind of seeing the ecosystem continue to grow it's really exciting that's very exciting and it's great to hear that a lot of percentage of the users that have used it ever are are active

11:58users i think like having retention and something that sticks is a huge green check for the project and and you mentioned about hosting the nodes and helping being a part of it you're also able to earn pre-search tokens but i see that you know without hosting the nodes and getting into the architecture just using the search engine it looks like you're also able to earn uh pre-search

12:22tokens and sort of be rewarded and and make an income from just doing what you would have done anyway yeah and that's definitely been a a key driver of of the growth and and you know of that stickiness it's something where people feel like oh yeah i've got a reason to to do it i'm being valued here and uh they're collecting those uh those pre-search tokens that over time uh do

12:47add up and uh so so yeah there's the rewards for that there's rewards for referring people into the network everybody basically has a link that they can share and if they do and people join through them then they they earn pre-search tokens as well so it is just trying to kind of decentralize that that value uh ecosystem uh you know right now if you think about it i mean there's

13:09just like hundreds of billions of dollars that are all funneling into mountain view california and it's it's you know very centralized and then it's kind of going from there to a few key points they've got you know i think 23 or so data centers that are around the world and then they've got a few different you know offices uh regionally uh but largely you know it's all kind of

13:30like coming in here and then and in this case it's it's very much you know distributed we've got uh there's a a a link that i'll post in the comments uh but it shows like where the the main net nodes are located you can see them like by country and it's uh it's pretty neat just to see that they are are all over the place and in places that you wouldn't think there's you know people

13:53running nodes there are and uh it is just more of that kind of direct uh value transfer that uh that is possible with cryptocurrency so yeah it's it's it's neat to think that we'll be able to build this uh to a much uh greater scale uh but but you know do it in a way where you know like the organization itself is is quite small and and ultimately we are

14:17looking to uh just you know empower community members to continue making pre-search better and better and uh helping to grow the network i mean it really it's kind of like the bitcoin of search is is kind of how we're thinking of it incredible colin and although the numbers are amazing that you you know you've spoken about since it's the main net launch

14:38for the next stage of research in in the past weeks here um you guys have been working on this for more than a few years but i feel like we're still so early and we're still just like at the 0.1 percent of what will be the web 3 and moving everybody into the web 3. um what are you and your team's plans on you know having pre-search become i know the default way

15:01that people search you know when people first get a computer and it just opens up to the browser they just use whatever's there you know for for the most part the majority of of regular users how do you get to that point where you know pre-search and searches that actually respect your privacy and reward you for your contributions become the default search

15:24yeah it is it's a really big opportunity i mean the the overall uh search space is massive and it's super centralized right now google has more than 92 market share uh you know duckduckgo has kind of come up uh over the past few years they seem to actually be a little bit on the uh the downtrend after some of their uh recent you know revelations that they're

15:45maybe not so aligned with their users and so we've been picking up a lot of uh ex goers which is is great uh but but overall you know we've kind of got a path where we can uh appeal to those people that that you know share values and that are interested in crypto and that are more kind of power users who are looking to actively customize and that alone is a big opportunity and then

16:09over time uh basically looking at all these different opportunities where you can get installed as uh you know a default search engine or do some type of a distribution agreement or partnership with any of the up-and-coming services so there's you know all new web 3 apps and there's ways that people are now accessing search in the web through different wallets and so uh we're

16:35working on getting included in those and uh then on kind of the legacy side we we actually kind of threw like a weird you know in in the eu there was was like a a legal ruling basically where they forced google rather than to set itself as the default every time somebody installed chrome or or android that they would be faced with a search choice screen where they would

16:59have to actually actively choose their search engine and so we ended up applying into that and got included and so now for uh all the eu uh android and chrome users uh presearch is one of the default options that they can easily select just as easily as they could choose google so i've been picking up a lot of users who you know maybe are curious about private

17:19search or blockchain but don't know pre-search per se and uh you know we'll definitely continue to uh pursue those opportunities as well sounds great colin that sounds like giving great strides as a default search engine uh great to hear that you know blockchain's being put on the map and people understand decentralization more and more for the everyday users of the internet and not

17:42just the power users and i feel like the tides are just going to continue to turn and i'm sure you know pre-searches growth should coincide with that as well for the viewers that are you know if they're just looking to utilize the search and try it out what's the best way and also to learn more about you know becoming an active uh node participant and earning pre-search

18:03tokens yeah so we we just switched actually uh to presearch.com uh that is is the new uh domain for the project and in this case we're you know thinking of dot com is representing the community.community uh so go to presearch.com you can uh register for an account using the link in the top right corner uh or there are kind of some other options if you hover

18:26over that top right menu that will enable you to explore the advertising platform which uses something called keyword staking or if you want to join in this decentralized infrastructure movement and run a pre-search node you can go into nodes and you know on general social media is is kind of a great place to subscribe for updates you can go to twitter.compresearchnews

18:52or telegram t dot me slash research and then discord if you're there is discord.research.com great i will leave those links in the description box below as well colin and thank you so much for taking the time to come on and explain all this all the best with you know search engine results bringing more people into the future of of web search um i believe that you guys

19:15are making good strides and i'm going to continue to use pre-search i am an active user of it as well and it is my go-to search engine so thank you for creating it and congratulations on all the success of the main net launch so far and growing nodes throughout the world and i'm looking forward to seeing how that continues to grow out and let's follow

19:34up in the near future awesome sounds good thanks i really appreciate it ashton thank you