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Top 5 Visual Search Engines

Posted on 09. Jul, 2009 by Bradley Hebdon in Features, Reviews

Visualizing search results can tread a fine line.  A fragile line that separates usefulness and gratuitousness.  To some degree, this judgement is subjective depending on the orientation of a user’s brain. The visual folks out there will  be drawn to visually rich interfaces, and in this case, search results. Take a look and let me know what you think. Useful or gratuitous?

1. Viewzi

Using Yahoo!, Google and Viddler, you can search the Web, images and videos. The results can then formatted as a power grid, a Google timeline, web screenshots, simple text, a photo tag cloud, and more. Results can be also customized as you can star or hide sites you care / don’t care about. Considering all the options to choose from, the interface is easy to use, and fun too! A robust, slick, feature-rich choice.  http://www.viewzi.com

2. Spezify

Using Yahoo!, Amazon, Twitter, Flickr, eBay and MSN, Spezify searches for text, images and video. The results are consumed on a wall, which can be panned in all directions.  What’s really practical and impressive is the ability to play video in-line, without leaving the results.  Spezify is a joy to use and might have been my first pick if it wasn’t for Viewzi’s more robust feature set. I’d also like to see Google added to Spezify’s sources.  http://www.spezify.com

3. Grokker

Grokker takes advantage of Yahoo!, Wikipedia, and Amazon Books search engines to perform its queries. The results are displayed in both a standard outline and a dynamic map; sorted by date, source, domain and then refined by selecting (or excluding) specific related keywords. Grokker isn’t the most visually appealing search engine, but it does keep one foot on traditional search engine turf. This might be good or bad, depending on your appetite for visuals being the primary means to browse or navigate through the results. http://www.grokker.com

4. Searchme

Searchme displays results in a dynamic carousel stack you can navigate back and forth. Searches are performed in multiple categories like videos, images, advertising, shopping, sport,, entertainment, news, and more. Other features include a parental filter, the possibility to play media right inside Searchme, and the sharing of your results via Twitter and Facebook.  I’m surprised that sharing and social book marking hasn’t been integrated across search engines more often. http://www.searchme.com

5. KartOO

KartOO searches the Web, images, videos and Wikipedia entries while using Google, and Yahoo! search engines The results can be displayed as visual map where related results are linked between them, which you can then use as additional search criteria.  A solid visual search engine, but does need a little help with their visual design and branding.  http://www.kartoo.com

Honorable Mentions:
http://www.touchgraph.com/TGGoogleBrowser.html
http://www.cooliris.com/
http://www.quintura.com
http://www.eyeplorer.com/
http://www.ziipa.com/
http://www.redzee.com/
http://www.liveplasma.com/
http://www.ujiko.com/
http://www.search-cube.com/
http://middlespot.com/
http://oskope.com/
http://www.nexplore.com/

Related posts:

1. The Search Engine Decision
2. Microsoft's New Search Engine, "Bing" is Rolling Out
3. A Google Documentary
4. Usability Study suggests Bing topples Google?
5. Wolfram Alpha: A computational knowledge engine

Tags: Grokker, KartOO, Search Engine, Searchme, Spezify, Viewzi, Visual Search Engine, Visualization