Today, the blog search engine Twingly has officially come out of beta.
Twingly allows you to search for the "Best of Blogs", with spam free results, the company says.
The folks at Twingly are also announcing their new widget platform that lets you turn any search result into a widget quickly. See an example here.
We're not sure how "spam free" this is, or what type of technology they use to make this claim, but the results didn't look that great when we did a search.
The saving grace here is that you can vote a result as a "like", which will bring it up in the ranks. A little Digg style there thrown in. It's going to take a lot of early adoption on Twingly's part to make that system work.
Along with the search, you can translate results into other languages, as well as subscribe to an RSS feed of any search as well. That's pretty standard stuff.
The Hot Right Now feature that shows up under the search bar could pick up some steam though. With all of the content out there, the trend seems to be towards companies trying to find a way to bubble up the most "important" or "interesting" content. We'll watch to see how this evolves and to see how accurate and/or helpful it is.
Twingly admits themselves that they're focusing on European blogs even though they're indexing worldwide, so that's something to keep in mind too.
Having trouble coming up with what to cook for dinner tonight? Maybe SuperCook can help.
SuperCook is a search engine designed to find recipes based on the ingredients you have in your kitchen. On the site you enter what you have, and then SuperCook will tell you what you can make. Recipes are divided by Starters, Entrees, and Desserts and list any additional items you might need beside their name so you don't waste time reading an entire recipe only to find you're missing a key ingredient. As you enter items the site starts to list "Recommended items" that will open the doors to more dishes. if you're headed out to the store anyway, SuperCook can also give you a recommended shopping list of items that will work well with what you have at home.
We tried the site out, and were a little let down. We put in two ingredients: cheddar cheese, and green beans. The site immediately returned 2000 recipes we could make with those two ingredients but most of them called for BLACK beans rather than green ones which isn't exactly the same thing. Somehow we think nachos with green beans wouldn't be all that tasty.
The site did come back with some good results for other searches, and if we had those black beans we were given tons of recipes that we might have otherwise not thought of. It's definitely not perfect, but it could be a good place to start if you're looking to be adventurous in the kitchen.
Ask has a helpful little feature in all searches that have to do with local information. A clock is now embedded on the right hand side of the screen, with the time clicking by in seconds. The date is also present, with current weather conditions underneath.
Thanks Ask. This is an extremely handy feature when researching new locations for travel or business, and a first of its kind for search engines. After all, who wants to call to enquire on local services at 6am!
Yahoo has brought audio samples into the Yahoo! Audio Search. Adding to song titles, artist names, album titles, and lyrics, millions of samples are now available to play though an instant playback button beside search results.
Audio samples can be heard by selecting Audio from the 'more' dropdown at Yahoo!'s main site. Upon clicking the search results 'Play Sample' button, a 30 second clip loads in the same window and plays. Users can then choose to download, aka buy, the track from BuyMusic, iTunes or MusicMatch among other online stores.
Yahoo! appears to be a leader in adding audio samples in search results, something that is very helpful when searching out a particular song. Google users are linked out to other locations in order to listen to music. Ask provides some audio samples care of iLike in search results, and Live Search provides no mention of audio samples.
Google is yet again adding to its ever growing list of services -- but the latest product in the works makes a lot of sense. The search giant is working on a niche search engine that will help cellphone users find ringtones, games, and other mobile content.
Google already provides a version of its internet search engine optimized for mobile devices with smaller screens and slower internet connections.
The new product could be a major money maker for Google. Cellphone users spend billions of dollars on phones, service, and content. Google will provide links for you to download and buy mobile goods like ringtones, wallpapers, and games. The company will charge content providers a fee for placing links at the top of a search results page, much the way it does with its regular search engine. Of course, that kind of placement could be even more valuable with the limited real estate on most mobile screens.
Yahoo! has added suggestions to its search bar. In other words, as you type your query, Yahoo! will pull up several possible suggestions. Scroll your mouse over the word and save yourself some valuable typing time. This also comes in handy if you have horrible spelling.
The new search function is almost identical to Google's, with two exceptions. Google Suggest is only available through Google Labs, and Google Suggest shows you how many results are associated with each search term.
Google Blogoscoped also has a nice little chart showing the different suggestions Google and Yahoo! offered for identical search terms. Both services look pretty useful, but Yahoo! often wasted a little space by offering you the same word you'd already entered in the search box.
Web sites that let you access multiple search engines are nothing new. Dogpile and similar services have been around for years.
But a couple of new multi-site search engines are making the search process prettier, if not more useful. Sputtr and Symbaloo let you search one site at a time, but from a central location. The idea is that you'll bookmark one of these sites, and then you'll never have to visit Google, Yahoo!, or any other search engine again. Sort of.
With Sputtr, you enter your search term in the box, then click the icon for the search engine or service (like eBay, YouTube, or StumbleUpond) that you want to search. Your result will pop up in the same window, or in a new window if you adjust your settings. You can customize the buttons available on the main page by selecting from dozens of additional search engines. But you cannot currently add your own sites.
Ever wonder who owns the patent for local search? Of course not, because being able to search for local restaurants, transportation, or classified listings online is kind of too obvious to be patented, right?
Apparently not. Local.com has picked up a patent for local search. Patent 7,231,405 refers to a process for "indexing and retrieving web-related information by geographical location."
Does this mean that Google, Yahoo!, Craigslist, and pretty much any other service that provides the ability to filter search results geographically will have to license technology from Local.com? Nope. The patent refers to one method of conducting location-based search.
Still, it sounds about as patentable as saying Download Squad would like exclusive rights to a certain method for using email tips, RSS feeds, and common knowledge to write blog entires about news and information about software and web services.
So what do you do if you're a giant search company that happens to own two separate and kind of competing video sharing services? If you guessed this isn't really a hypothetical question you're smarter than you look.
When you search for videos using Google now, you get results hosted by Google, but also videos on sites including Yahoo!, Metacafe, and of course YouTube. At the top of the page, you'll see a list of related videos and an option to see the next or previous video in your search results.
As for the result itself, you're taken to the site hosting the video -- except you still have the Google interface at the top of your screen. This is similar to the way Google handles image search. For the user, this is either a convenience (find more videos using your favorite search engine) or a huge problem (lose screen real estate while trying to watch videos). But at least Google finally found something to do with its video service.
FindSounds is a website that helps you... are you ready for this? Find sounds. We know, it's shocking that someone would give a web service a useful and descriptive name, but there you go.
Say you want to find the sound of a jackhammer, or a forest. Just visit FindSounds, type your query into a search box, and you're whisked away to a page of matching results. Click on the sound icon next to each result to hear or download the file.
You can refine your search by limiting it to WAV, AU, or AIFF files. You can also search for stereo or mono files, or set sample rate or resolution requirements. The largest files you can search for are up to 2MB, so don't expect to find musical recordings here. This is strictly for sound effects.
Beyond that, it's not entirely clear what FindSounds is good for. Like any search engine, FindSounds provides links to other websites. No audio is hosted on the site. That means if you actually wanted to use the sounds you find for pretty much anything, you'll need to figure out for yourself if the sound bites are copyrighted.
Search engine Ask.com has launched a new site design. When you first navigate to the website, you'll see a clean page with a search bar and a couple of icons representing different types of searches (web, images, city, news, blogs, etc). It's a bit like Google, if Google had icons next to its search types.
But once you enter a search term, things are very different. First off, if you pause for a second after typing your term, suggestions will pop up. For example, when you start to write "download sq," Ask will recommend "download squad."
When you get to the results page, you can preview listings by scrolling your mouse over the binoculars button. Or you can click the + button to bookmark a page if you register for an account.
Account holders can also customize their results by selecting locations or setting up filters. You can also modify the start page with skins. Right now, that means choosing from a list of images, but TechCrunch reports you'll eventually be able to upload your own images.
The European Union's data protection advisory group sent a letter to Google this month asking why the company keeps records of user searches for up to two years.
The underlying issue here is whether Google and other search engines are violating users' privacy rights by maintaining search records, even if those records are used to improve the user experience by offering personalized search options. European Union investigators are also looking at the way Yahoo! and Microsoft store data.
Google is well aware that there are privacy concerns associated with its retention of search data, and is taking steps to anonymize data that is kept for more than 18 to 24 months. In other words, for about two years, the company will be able to track a particular user's search results. After that, the data will still be available, but there will be no way to associate it with a specific user.
QueryCAT has a new take on the search engine. Rather than scanning the web for a answers to your queries, the search engine looks specifically at Frequently Asked Question pages.
When it works well, you get a pretty decent response to your question listed right on the front page, no click-through necessary. That's because the site has found a direct match to your question and displayed the answer. For example, if you ask "What is Thunderbird?" You will find that "Thunderbird is a free, open-source email client based on the Mozilla code base."
But there are limitations to this system. For example, "How to dual boot Ubuntu and Windows" comes up with one irrelevant result, while the same search on Google brings up several helpful tutorials.
QueryCAT's Kevin Carey says the site currently has about 2-million questions and answers indexed, but the goal is to double or even triple that number within the next few weeks, which should result in better search results.
Is it difficult to find the best websites with search engines or directories? Dfinitive thinks it can help.
As it currently stands, Dfinitive looks as if it is recreating the famous DMOZ open directory project by trying to take the best elements of a directory site, search engine and a bookmarking site and teaming it up with a mix of experts in the areas they feel are lacking.
Dfinitive plans to create a list of definitive sites for each category, in hopes that they will create a unique user experience that helps users find the optimal sites for the topic area they are searching for. Only time will tell how it fares, but as it sits now their categories need a little growth as they only have SEO, Affiliate Marketing, and Blogging listed.
Customize your personal home page with gadgets including stock listings, news feeds, and movie listings.
Google's mobile search page now remembers your location. So if you were looking for movie listings in Des Moines, then decided to look for a barber shop, Google would show you barber shops in Des Moines first.
Rather than ask you to search images, news, web pages, etc, Google now searches various media and presents the images, web pages, or other information it thinks you're most likely looking for.
While that last bullet seems like a nice idea, it's kind of tricky to implement on a small screen. Images take up a lot of space, and if you're getting images, stock quotes, and web results when you just wanted a web page, that's a lot of clutter.
Google claims that the new interface is designed to reduce the number of clicks you'll have to make to find what you're looking for. But presenting different types of search results on one page means it could take a lot of scrolling to find the page you want.
Today, the blog search engine Twingly has officially come out of beta.
