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We may be coming upon a new era for the Internet search results. And, despite what you may think, Google is not the only player.
New search engines that are popping up across the Web strive to make searches faster, smarter, more personal and more visually interesting.
Some sites, like Twine and hakia, will try to personalize searches, separating out results you would find interesting, based on your Web use. Others, like Searchme, offer iTunes-like interfaces that let users shuffle through photos and images instead of the standard list of hyperlinks. Kosmix bundles information by type - from Twitter, from Facebook, from blogs, from the government - to make it easier to consume.
Google also showed off something it called the “Wonder Wheel,” a graphical way to explore topics by clicking on related searches that go deeper into the subject of the main query. It also showcased Google Squared, a tool designed to chart research into columns and rows for those who are trying to track and organize information they get from the Web. Google Squared will be available in Labs later this month.
Wolfram Alpha, set to launch soon, is more of an enormous calculator than a search: It crunches data to come up with query answers that may not exist online until you search for them. And sites like Twitter are trying to capitalize on the warp-speed pace of online news today by offering real-time searches of online chatter - something Google’s computers have yet to replicate.
As of this writing the new options aren’t available to everyone, but Google says they should be available to all users in the next 24 hours. These new features will be very helpful to students in need of assistance in refining searches or help in thinking of alternative search terms.
