Spezify - A new search bin ?

And just when you thought they have stopped popping up, here comes another one – Spezify.com . A snazzy search bin devoted to “taking web search further, away from endless lists of blue text links and towards a more intuitive experience”.

Looks nice and the results are collaged with bits and pieces of information which infact look like an online newspaper. As mentioned in their “About Spezify “page, the main intent is to present the data in a better (Colorful, brighter) way. Though it seems a bit doubtful (May be I am too used to the Google way). The search results are amassed from different sources like MSN, Yahoo, Amazon, Flickr etc (Google is not a source, wonder what the catch is) and presented as in the picture above. It reminds me of Picassa’s timeline feature which gives you scroll navigation across the surface. I wouldn't call it a search engine since the results are retrieved from other search engines.

The beta of spezify had some user comments which requested for a Zoom in/out option which they have obliged to. Press the spacebar and you will have a broader view of your results if you are already on one particular search.

• One major issue I had is with the way the results were to be selected. With a newspaper reel sort of an interface, I expected a simple click to work. But instead of that, a click on it will zoom in on the result with options presented for you and with the URL mentioned in right hand corner. Click on it and you will be transferred to the needed page.

• Though I believe the settings could be tweaked, I find it an annoyance to have another explorer window popping out when you try to dig into a result. Many users like me expect it to continue on the same page.

• The settings when changed are stored locally on your computer in a cookie. Thumbs down for that.

It’s fun to move the results around on the surface (a pinkish background. Ok. I am colorblind ;-)). The catch here is that search engine requires Flash player by default for the visual effects to work (Correct me if I am wrong).

So the verdict is: You want to show off that you know a different search engine than G, Y, or MSN, you have a good one. But other than the aesthetics, it doesn’t have much to offer the end user.

Options present:

Favourites (Don’t all of them have it now ? )

Tweak Settings (didn’t try it)

You can turn the sources on and off.

Hide types of results (multimedia , text )

Are we thinking in 140 Characters?

All of us are drifters. Or just tying to keep up with what’s new (I am no exception). When it comes to adopting or adapting to a new Social networking site , blogging space or whatever ; there are two kinds of people .Some who join in because his friend told him that “ it’s so cool “ that his neighbor yelled at him in his Facebook account for keeping the music loud ( DUH !! ) . And some like my nephews who have kept time apart to understand the lingo of the site they have joined so that they can brag about who “OWND “who in the Crisis “tournie” they had yesterday.

And you felt that the dust has settled on who will be crowned as THE BIG thing? WRONG ! ( Alarm ). Blogspot, Wordpress, Facebook,Myspace,Orkut,Twitter , Yammer – Just to name a few. You see a new site emerging every day with invites spamming your email account. And if that’s nothing , developers are trying to make money out of these popular ones with their own rip-off’s which has multiple accounts linked in one way or another ( Too much of a mess if you ask me ). Gone are the days when some one asked you “ What’s your email account ?“( My mom gives a stare and asks me “ What happened to Whats your name “). No surprises when the contact addresses are changed to twitter.com/nick

All of us want to blog ( or want to be there for the heck of it ). Books were written on Blog-Etiquettes ( Give me a break, I want to be express myself freely somewhere ) and it was almost certain that blogs were the next big thing when Evan Williams dropped out of one of the major players and formed Twitter with a small bird as the logo ( The whale is a big contender if you ask me ;-) ) . With no effort , your followers increase in number and you get a tweet-by-tweet report of what Jack Black did when he was in the backstage of Ozzfest last time .Frenzied media have moved into the space as well with updates with “links” to their news page. The best I know of anyone gaining from twitter is that guy who made a CNN user account even before tweets were making rounds/waves. Heard he was hired or CNN bought the account for huge sum ( Not sure of this.) breaking twitter’s rules.

So , is it for the better or worst ? Have we started thinking in 140 characters these days? Are you an addict ? The tweets thoughts linger.

Klueless 5

Lost my partner as he went home and I am trying to get this done ;) .. got to say this .. I am Klueless.

Immediate requirements nearby : A Webster English dictionary ;)

At lvl 13 !

PS : at 21 ( A bad day at work and you cant even open a URL ) .. Blocked :( ..