Kagi brings its “micro-grid” of human-only Internet to mobile devices

With artificial intelligence taking over the Internet, Palo Alto-based search engines Help yourself He is bring Its carefully curated collection of non-commercial, human-generated websites on mobile devices through new ‘micro web’ apps for iOS and Android. the “Small web“, in Kaji’s definition, includes sites created by individuals, such as personal blogs, webcomics, independent videos, and more.

These are the kinds of characteristics that formed the basis of the early Web, before it was dominated by ad-supported business models and platforms controlled by large corporations. It’s also the kind of site that can be difficult to discover on today’s web, where much of the content is combined with, if not directly authored by, artificial intelligence.

Start your search first Fired Her idea for a “small web” initiative in 2023, aims to promote this type of content in its search results and through a dedicated website. In March, the company announced this expansion These efforts are through browser extensions, mobile apps, and a way to filter results by category.

the Small website It is like modern times StumbleUpon Because it displays one of the selected locations at random, then lets you click the Next button to go to another location. Like StumbleUpon, the goal is to help users discover parts of the web they may have missed.

With the addition of categories, users can now limit discovery to only topics of interest from the more than 30,000 “microweb” sites in the Kagi index.

It is also available in the new Kagi mobile apps iOS and Android And his browser Accessories. Here, you can select the type of content you want to see, such as videos, blogs, code repositories, or comics. You can also view a list of recently viewed or popular sites, and read them in a distraction-free mode. Additionally, you can save your favorite sites and articles to come back to later.

While the initiative to make the less trafficked parts of the indie web more visible is a worthwhile one — especially at a time when AI-generated content masquerades as human creativity — some Kagi users complain that the little web product doesn’t go any further.

In the Hacker News discussion forum, One person pointed out Kagi limits its selection to sites with RSS feeds containing recent posts, which rules out the inclusion of unique, single-purpose websites or demo pages in Kagi’s collection. Another was frustrated when he found a supposed “microweb” that looked suspiciously like it might be It was written using artificial intelligence.

However, the concept of a human-curated content network that is also written by humans could be something worth building, especially if Kaji’s original concept of To become an alternative to Google By offering a premium, paid search engine, it does not work.

In the meantime, people can suggest new sites for the Small Web through it GitHub page.