I agree with your initial evaluation of what does and doesn’t constitute a search engine. Self-definition is a big challenge for new online technologies — you want to be new but not too new, and in order for people to understand and appreciate your value, you frequently have to define yourself in terms of older technology. We face that issue regularly at VortexDNA, but the solution is not to exaggerate what you do by making inappropriate comparisons.

The difficulty is how to describe fantastic achievements in a simple way. In this case, FaceBook could have easily run the numbers and made its claim more accurate, less hyperbolic, more impressive — and less subject to being torn down.

“During one series of talks with Microsoft, Facebook executives told their Microsoft peers they couldn’t do an 8 a.m. conference call because the company’s 22-year-old founder and chief executive, Harvard dropout Mark Zuckerberg, wouldn’t be awake… Microsoft executives were incredulous.”

http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/09/21/facebook-and-yahoo-in-acquisition-talks-for-1-billion/

So, when is The Big G going to buy this thing already?