Lately, I've been writing about how major companies, like Yahoo, have been making key hires to develop the next phase in search – that is, "social search." Basically, this uses sophisticated Web 2.0 techniques and user generated content to build better systems. And, more importantly, it's a way to try to beat the king of search, Google.

Well, there are some interesting upstarts in this sector, such as OOZM. It's tagline: "More relevant results because they are rated by REAL people, not Robots."

I interviewed the creator of OOZM, Guna Deivendran. In fact, he is selling his site on eBay. Yes, as is typical in the Web 2.0 field, Guna's strength is in building new technologies, not building businesses.

You can check out the eBay listing here.

According to Guna:

Something the government does a lot:  produce information.

So, it makes sense that Google has a new search portal, called Google U.S. Government Search.

It certainly is comprehensive – covering web sites and databases of federal, state and local governments. There are also news feeds (such as from Google News, Washington Post and so on).

This is a great resource for the general public. However, it appears that the product is focused on Google's effort to sell its products – such as Google Search Appliance, Google Mini, Google Earth Enterprise and Google Maps for Enterprise – to government customers.  In fact, there is even a Google page for government products.

Actually, the federal government has its own search site at firstgov.gov.  And it is Microsoft's MSN technology that powers it.

I interviewed Guna Deivendran, the founder of oozm.com, a search engine that is powered by its users:  "Today's successful search engines need to do more than just index countless numbers of websites to meet the needs of the end users.  This is a sign that Google is moving toward more personalized search results pages."