While Google Inc.(NASDAQ:GOOG) is the king of search, there are many startup companies trying to get a piece of the action.

One is StumbleUpon, which got its start in Calgary in 2001.

True, this is not exactly the hub of tech activity. Then again, that's been a good thing -- as the company was able to refine its system while "under the radar."

What is the service? Basically, StumbleUpon has a toolbar that allows users to rate and write reviews about sites. A user can then press a button and find a cool site (which is based on complex calculations of the growing database of recommendations).

Sound pretty cool? Others think so, too. The company has snagged money from an elite group of angel investors: Ram Shriram (Google, Junglee, Zazzle), Mitch Kapor (Lotus, Real Networks, UUNET), Josh Kopelman (Half.com, TurnTide, Delicious), Ron Conway (FaceBook, StubHub, Simply Hired), Rajeev Motwani (Google, Kaboodle), and Ariel Poler (LinkExchange, Kana, I/PRO).

I had a chance to interview the co-founder and Chief Architect of StumbleUpon., Garrett Camp.

And he does have an interesting bio:

"An adaptive information systems researcher, Garrett holds a master's degree in software engineering from the University of Calgary. His research has focused on evolutionary algorithms, knowledge retrieval, and web usability."

Now, for the interview:

What's your take on Google's new custom search product? Where do you think Google is taking it?

The new Google Co-op looks much better, letting people create a custom search engine much like Rollyo. The revenue sharing via AdSense is also interesting since it will let publishers profit when their content is queried. With further aesthetic customization I can see a lot of webmasters using this before moving up to an enterprise search appliance.

You've talked about how social search will be a big factor in 2007.

I think social search will take off in 2007 because social networking has become ubiquitous, and integrating it with content retrieval systems is the next logical step.
Currently the experience offered by MySpace, Friendster and other online networks is compelling, but often not useful outside of an entertainment context.

Systems like StumbleUpon, Digg and del.icio.us are now integrating social interaction with content discovery, and helping people find better content by leveraging recommendations from friends and like-minded people.

How does Google play there?

As far as Google, while they haven't directly entered into social search, they have included social and personalized features in recent product updates. The Google Personalized Home has an "Interesting Items for you" module and the Google toolbar now has "Send to" functionality - both social elements. Google is definitely thinking about recommendation and social search.

And about your new product?

Our new product, StumbleUpon Search Reviews, integrates our database of 7 million reviewed Web pages with existing search engines - so you can see who likes the pages you've found through Google or Yahoo!. This makes searching more social and meaningful, since it lets you connect with others who liked the same content. Search Reviews is now available to all Firefox users, and is coming soon to IE as well.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook. He operates InvestorOffering.com.

With Google, Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) releasing its "custom search engine" this week for anyone to use, the U.S. government -- and other governments -- will probably be flocking over this new product like flies on ... you know. The reason? Google's custom search engine offering will not be be intrusive. That is, it will not display ads alongside searches that occur inside government agencies.

Google has waived advertising completely from being included in its custom search engine offering when the service is being used by government agencies, which means that completely unorganized government agencies -- insofar as data organization -- can now install a spiffy Google search product and hopefully organize all its information for its internal customers. All that without Google prying into government affairs to display contextual ads based on search terms. Yay for government privacy.

So, with government agencies already using Google "boxes" (search hardware) extensively, this new product will be a nice addition, especially to super-secretive agencies that only want to search information and rank results themselves without outside intervention from anyone (that's a huge no-no). This move by Google will probably spawn a whole new breed of Google box add-ons by government agencies. I'm betting it will, and very easily.