MC Hammer's Next Hit: Search Technology?MC Hammer's Next Hit: Search Technology?

MC Hammer, entertainer-turned-entrepreneur, demonstrated some of the capabilities of WIREDoo, which Hammer called both "Deep Search" and "Relationship Search," at Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco on Wednesday.

Hammer, cognizant of the presence of Google co-founder Sergay Brin in the audience, said that the technology isn't meant to replace existing search, but to add value. Specifically, search queries add the notion of data relationships to results. For example a search of the word "car" might also come with the relationships to insurance, cost, specs, mileage, and who the driver will be. A search for "home" might also include relationships to community, schools, financing, insurance and so on.

In one search on a zip code, Hammer showed in a single screen result the schools, homes, information on the community, shopping, crime rate...when he further selected "homes" the result set showed information like square footage and schools, among other data. Selecting schools showed things like SAT scores, school credential ratings, and truancy rates. Selecting truancy showed expulsion and suspension rates. In other words, not only does each search present a wealth of useful related information, but that search can just be a starting point to drill deeper and deeper.

A search on the Apple stock symbol brought back results that showed related stock data, related news, mutual fund ownership, and each of these showed even deeper, rich data, like all of the funds invested in Apple and the share volume and changes in that volume.

(Update: For a more clever, sarcastic read on M.C. Hammer's venture, The Onion AV Club put its own spin on WIREdoo.)

Hammer, a Bay area native, said he spends his time with young CEOs, helping them get started. WIREDoo seemed an impressive example. You can see more in the video below.