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Text based search engines are all right if you're looking for text-based web pages. But Microsoft, Yahoo!, and Google all have features that let you search for images or videos, because let's face it, that's what you're looking for on the internet much of the time. But the major search engine's approach toward image and video search feels a lot like the old fashioned approach to text-based search. You get a list of results, a brief description, and a link to the original source. If you're lucky, you may get the ability to watch a video or view a larger version of the thumbnail without leaving the search page, but that's about it.

Viewzi is one of a handful of new web sites that's aimed at making visual search a little more... visual. Like visual search engine SearchMe, Viewzi lets you scroll between screenshots of web pages. But it doesn't stop there. Viewzi offers over a dozen different ways to view search results. You can pick your favorite view and then conduct a search. Or you can rely on Viewzi to automatically detect the type of information you're probably looking for and select a view for you.

For example, if you're searching for a song title, Viewzi will move the MP3 search view to the top of the list so you can find and listen to songs. If you search for "weather in Philadelphia," Viewzi will recommend a weather view or a news view, which shows associated content like a weather forecast or news stories related to your search.

Viewzi launched a public beta today, which means the service, which we first mentioned last summer is now open to anyone. But it is still a beta, and some search views work better or load more quickly than others.