The Future of Search?
A picture is worth a thousand meta-tags: Search Me is a new web browser that allows the user to peruse the web visually rather than textually. Much like the latest Mac operating system, Search Me shows its search results on keywords by displaying real-time images of the web pages, allowing the user to "flip" through results. In a world where "junk-sites" are getting better and better at disguising their textual search results as genuine web space, this platform can be incredibly useful in saving the time and trouble of clicking into sites that are not at all what you are looking for.
Search Me Beta
Another nice feature of Search me is that the browser provides visual subject delineations, so you can narrow your search results to the general area you are looking for.
Now for the bad news: in terms of functionality, Search Me is terribly lacking in its current iteration: it's just doesn't seem to be performing a very comprehensive search. After doing some general search analysis, it seems clear they are not feeding Google results, but using some new search system (a friend of mine who deals in Search Engine Optimization took a gander at this for me and didn't have a clue what they were using). Unfortunately whatever they ARE using as a search basis is currently not very good in its present state - the search results seem somewhat random in popularity, which can become troublesome in a platform where scrolling through each result to get to the next is mandatory. Typing in "CMYKABOOM" not only does not turn up this site, but no results whatsoever (Google displays it #1, with numerous other websites as well). But what really bothers me is that it couldn't even find this site when I went as far as typing the URL into the search form!
That being said, I still find this site a compelling new browser conceptually. In an environment where the web is becoming more fluid and transparent, Search Me's visual display could easily find a warm welcome. If Search Me were to refine their search functionality, and perhaps build an alternative view option to allow the user to view multiple pages at once, I feel it could be a very strong and competitive platform, and possibly a contender against all the search big-boys in their text-based world. I would not be at all surprised if this is the direction of future search engines; a "Browser 2.0," if you will. And I also wouldn't be surprised if Google snatches this puppy up any day now.
Search Me Beta
Another nice feature of Search me is that the browser provides visual subject delineations, so you can narrow your search results to the general area you are looking for.
Now for the bad news: in terms of functionality, Search Me is terribly lacking in its current iteration: it's just doesn't seem to be performing a very comprehensive search. After doing some general search analysis, it seems clear they are not feeding Google results, but using some new search system (a friend of mine who deals in Search Engine Optimization took a gander at this for me and didn't have a clue what they were using). Unfortunately whatever they ARE using as a search basis is currently not very good in its present state - the search results seem somewhat random in popularity, which can become troublesome in a platform where scrolling through each result to get to the next is mandatory. Typing in "CMYKABOOM" not only does not turn up this site, but no results whatsoever (Google displays it #1, with numerous other websites as well). But what really bothers me is that it couldn't even find this site when I went as far as typing the URL into the search form!
That being said, I still find this site a compelling new browser conceptually. In an environment where the web is becoming more fluid and transparent, Search Me's visual display could easily find a warm welcome. If Search Me were to refine their search functionality, and perhaps build an alternative view option to allow the user to view multiple pages at once, I feel it could be a very strong and competitive platform, and possibly a contender against all the search big-boys in their text-based world. I would not be at all surprised if this is the direction of future search engines; a "Browser 2.0," if you will. And I also wouldn't be surprised if Google snatches this puppy up any day now.
Labels: sweet sites
posted by Cynthia Silvestri at
5/13/2008 07:20:00 AM
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