Despite the overwhelming market dominance of Google and the media hype surrounding the launch of Microsoft’s snazzy new service, Bing, not everyone is convinced that Internet search has reached the end of its evolutionary path.
That’s the theory, at least, of new search engines like Collecta and CrowdEye, which argue that, like prehistoric dinosaurs, Google, Bing and Yahoo are simply too slow to keep up with today’s rapid-fire Internet. Instead, they argue, searchers can get better and more timely information from real-time search results.
“The industry is abuzz with the idea of real-time search,” said Gerry Campbell, CEO of Collecta. “But for most companies touting these services, ‘real time’ equates to timely or recent, not necessarily now. From a structural standpoint, Collecta is the only true real-time search solution out there.”
Same Speed, Different Approach?
CrowdEye, for one, begs to differ. Developed by Ken and Becca Moss, two former Microsoft employees, the search engine concentrates on searching the millions of tweets that flow through Twitter each hour. In the process, it compiles a list of popular related words, hash tags, and links posted by Twitter users. The resulting information is presented in a simple, uncluttered grid.
The chief difference between the two lies in the fact that Collecta is designed to be dynamic, in the sense that results are constantly updated and flow down the screen as new results come in. In appearance, it’s more of a search feed than a search engine. CrowdEye, by contrast, provides a more traditional snapshot of Web activity.
For analyst Greg Sterling, founding principal of Sterling Market Intelligence, the jury is still out on how successful these search engines will be. “Twitter-based search engines have limited utility right now,” Sterling said. “They’re very interesting, and real-time search is clearly here to stay. How the public reacts to services like these,…