The release yesterday of an Alpha version of Jimmy Wales's new Wikia Search project underwhelmed critics. Michael Arrington of TechCrunch called it a "complete letdown" and even BusinessWeek.com noted that 'Preliminary testing of the site...produced disappointing results consistent with the widespread grumbles.'

Another typical reaction is this one from Allen Stern of CenterNetworks.com: "I understand that it's in Alpha and things will improve and change as the plan moves forward, however I would have liked it to be a bit more polished before hitting the public eye."

So, what went wrong?

Perhaps nothing. Unusually for a launch, even an alpha one, Wales (pictured) explicitly warned that the quality of Wikia Search was "terrible" and stressed that it was going to take a minimum of two years before Wikia Search produces results as good as the major search engines.

Ever precise, Wales noted drily: "This is a project to build a search engine, not a search engine." His last project, to build the world's most-consulted online encyclopedia, didn't go to shabbily. It would be brave man who bet against him.