Fireball (search engine)

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Fireball
"Your anonymous search engine."
Internet search engine
languages 2
operator Fireball Labs GmbH
Registration optional
On-line 1996
https://fireball.com

Fireball is an Internet search engine from Germany that was launched in 1996 .

history

In 1996, the Computer Science Department at the Technical University of Berlin developed the first German-language Internet search engine under the name Flipper, which was later renamed Kitty. The search service was further developed by the KIT project group at the FLP chair at the Technical University of Berlin on behalf of the Gruner + Jahr publishing group . The project team consisted of Oli Kai Paulus, Helmut Hoffer von Ankershoffen, Nurhan Yildirim and Benhui Chen.

In June 1997 the further development was first put online under the name "Fireball". The search robot was renamed "Kit-Fireball".

In April 1998 Fireball indexed 6.5 million German-language documents. A cooperation with AltaVista made global searches possible. The surf tip service was launched in collaboration with TV Today . Live search has also been integrated. From 1997 to 1999, Fireball was also used for T-Online's web search .

In 1998 Fireball expanded its range to include a news search engine under the name Paperball . An email service called “ Firemail ” was also added. In 1998 Fireball was the German market leader in the field of search engines.

Although the web search remained the focus of Fireball, functions of a web portal were increasingly added. In addition to a web directory, this included in particular editorial content such as news, advice or the online youth magazine "zslash". In January 2000, Fireball was managing around 13.5 million web documents. Also in January 2000, a short-lived Korean version of Fireball was launched in cooperation with the South Korean portal Daum . The German-language Fireball reached 68.7 million page views and 14 million visits in January 2000.

At the end of 1999 it was announced that Lycos Europe was planning to take over Fireball and then go public. The takeover was completed in March 2000, but Fireball and the Paperball and Firemail services were initially continued as Fireball Netsearch GmbH as an independent subsidiary within Lycos Europe. After the takeover by Lycos Europe, which already operated several other search engines, the further development of Fireballs was pursued more cautiously.

After the takeover and with the rise of Google , Fireball, like almost all other search engines, lost massive market share within a very short time. In August 2000, Gfk Online Monitor measured a market share of 22% for Fireball in Germany. In 2001 this was just under 10%. Fireball was relaunched in mid-2001, as a result of which the creation of its own editorial content was largely stopped and Fireball repositioned itself as a pure search engine.

Nevertheless, the market share continued to fall, in 2002 it was still around 2.5% and by 2005 it had fallen to just 0.3%. In 2002 Fireball was dissolved as an independent company and managed entirely from Lycos Europe.

Lycos Europe entered into a marketing cooperation with Yahoo in 2003 , which also included Fireball. In 2004 the Firemail service was discontinued. In 2008 Lycos Europe left Yahoo and entered into a marketing cooperation with Google , which included Fireball.

In 2009 Lycos Europe was broken up and Fireball was sold to a Swiss holding company.

In 2016 Fireball changed hands again and has since been further developed by Fireball Labs GmbH , based in Munich , based on new technology.

A relaunch took place in 2018 with the involvement of the community. Furthermore, Fireball is now clearly positioning itself as "your anonymous search engine". That means Fireball does not track or store any information about the user, such as B. IP address , user agent , language settings or websites that the user has visited or has visited. In addition, Fireball does not store any connections between search queries by a user and no cookies are set.

Search areas

  • Web
  • photos
  • Videos
  • news
  • map
  • Products

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://archiv.pressestelle.tu-berlin.de/pi/1997/pi143.htm
  2. ↑ https://www.gruenderszene.de/allgemein/fehlentscheidungen-deutsche-online-branche
  3. ↑ Bodo Thielmann: Strategic Innovation Management in Converging Markets: Media and Telecommunications Companies in Online Services and in Digital Television , Springer, 2013; P. 176
  4. ↑ https://www.computerwoche.de/a/was-wurde-eigentlich-aus,3315108
  5. ↑ Yves Meinhardt: Change of business models in dynamic industries: case studies from the biotech / pharmaceutical industry and from business-to-consumer portals, p. 167
  6. ↑ https://www.golem.de/9902/2688.html
  7. ↑ http://presseservice.pressrelations.de/pressemitteilung/innovative-kooperation- between- moneybee- und- zeitungssuchdienst-paperball- 61810.html
  8. ↑ https://www.golem.de/0001/5891.html
  9. ↑ https://www.computerwoche.de/a/fusion-und-boersengang-von-lycos-und-fireball,1089019
  10. ↑ https://www.golem.de/0003/6685.html
  11. ↑ http://www.manager-magazin.de/digitales/it/a-188985.html
  12. ↑ https://seo-summary.de/suchmaschinen/
  13. ↑ https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Fireball-zurueck-zu-den-Wurzeln-37510.html
  14. ↑ https://metager.de/klassik/dstag2010/markt3.html
  15. ↑ https://kress.de/news/detail/beitrag/31798.html
  16. ↑ https://www.golem.de/0405/31143.html
  17. ↑ https://blog.fireball.com/de/fireball-relaunch-2018
  18. ↑ https://fireball.com/privacy

Coordinates: 47 ° 11 ′ 2.2 "  N , 8 ° 31 ′ 22"  E ; CH1903:  six hundred and eighty-two thousand one hundred seventy-one  /  226,456