In Social Web, Search Engines are as important as Web 1.0, because searching is a way for us to find stuff. Let me introduce to you 10 new and creative search engines, although we cannot compare them with Search Engine Giant – Google. Sometimes, they are more useful than Google.
1. Aardvark http://vark.com/
Position: Social Local Searching
VC: US$ 7 million
Aardvark is designed for social life information search, for example, users can ask questions about lifestyle through IM or E-Mail, and they can get answers at once.
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2. ChaCha http://www.chacha.com/
Position: Mobile Internet Searching
VC: US$ 36 million
ChaCha provides Mobile Internet Search services, every mobile phone user can use it for free.
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3. Cuil http://www.cuil.com/
Position: Integrated Searching
VC: US$ 36 million
As you know, the designers and developers behind Cuil used to be Googlers, it has been said that Cuil can provide better results with more indexes and faster speed. Cuil can also analyse every user’s searching action.
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4. Gist http://www.gist.com
Position: E-Mail Inbox Searching
VC: US$ 1.5 million
Gists provides E-Mail Inbox Search services, we can use it for full-text mails searching, or other advanced functions. Everything you do only requires an IMAP account.
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5. Kosmix http://www.kosmix.com/
Position: Applications Searching
VC: US$ 55 million
Users can use Kosmix for applications searching, it is very useful for some users because there are more and more social applications. We can also see that Kosmix got very big amount of Venture Capital.
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6. Like.com http://like.com/
Position: Visual Searching
VC: US$ 50 million
Like.com used to provide face detecting services, now it has been changed to visual search engine, it is very useful for customers that love online shopping.
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7. Powerset http://www.powerset.com/
Position: Natural Language Searching
VC: US$ 12.5 million
This search engine can understand what you are saying, and return the perfect result! It can parse the natural language that we are saying, especially the questions.
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8. Twitter Search http://search.twitter.com/
Position: Real-time Searching
Of course, Twitter Search is the best Real-time search engine, as we can find everything instantly.
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9. Wolfram Alpha http://www.wolframalpha.com/
Position: Computing Searching
This search engine is only a plan at the moment, it can return the best answer instead of lots of webpage links. It is quite different from Google.
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10. Zillow http://www.zillow.com/
Position: Houses Searching
VC: US$ 87 million
Want to query any information about houses? Zillow can help you to filter the information and it can give you the best choice.