In terms of user experience, the gap between the major search engines and their alternatives continues to widen -- a lot. Google has been compared to a luxury liner that turns around very, very slowly, whereas the startups are speedboats that can turn (or innovate) on a dime. I guarantee that if you try any of these top 10 alternative search engines of 2008, you won't come away saying, "Hey, that was just like Google."

As evidence of just how much the landscape is changing, three of our top 10 products require one-time downloads: once thought to be the kiss of death when Google sits in wait. But AltSearchEngines thinks that 2009 will be the tipping point when the rewards outweigh the "risks," at least for power users. For everyone else: 2010. Faroo, KallOut, and Surf Canyon (and, again, Tazti) are all well worth leaving your comfort zone for.

How many of these 10 search tools had you used, seen, or even heard of before today? The latest data from Hitwise shows that the four major search engines get over 98% of all US search traffic; the rest, combined, get less than 2%. These wonderful inventions need and deserve more exposure, so do your part and take the time to try out each one! On that note, let's begin.

This is the ninth in ReadWriteWeb's series of top products of 2008:

• Top 10 Semantic Web Products of 2008
• Top 10 International Products of 2008
• Top 10 Consumer Web Apps of 2008
• Top 10 RSS and Syndication Products of 2008
• Top 10 Mobile Web Products of 2008
• Top 10 Enterprise Web Products of 2008
• Top 10 Real World Web Apps of 2008
• Top 10 Digital Lifestyle Products of 2008

Note: these 10 search engines are listed alphabetically.

1. ChaCha

ChaCha, as a search tool, is human-powered, general, and mobile. There is no website, no search box, and no page witih a list of ten links. To use ChaCha, simply call 1-800-2ChaCha (1-800-224-2242) in the US, or send a text to 242242. When you call, leave your query just as you would any other voice-mail message, and hang up. Within 2 to 5 minutes, a human guide will have researched and texted you the answer. I used ChaCha with only my cheap cell phone when I was lost in New York City at midnight. And that's an important point: you can call ChaCha at any time with any question for any reason on any phone -- as long as that phone can receive text messages. And, aside from your carrier's incoming text fees, ChaCha is free. We recently reported on ChaCha over at AltSearchEngines.

2. Cooliris

2008 was the year when search visualization met the iPhone. Cooliris has already won one ReadWriteWeb award, making it onto the list of the Top 10 Consumer Apps of 2008. RWW wrote in that post, "Visual browsing is still coming into its own, but Cooliris is leading the charge in a way that consumers will embrace." We at ASE have been following Cooliris since its PicLens days. Following right behind are SearchMe and Viewzi. Each of these three visual search engines displays your search results beautifully and fluidly on your iPhone, but with different styles, so you might as well download all three and experiment. There is a demo video on each site.

3. Faroo

Alternative search engines need at least one thing that differentiates them from the major search engines. Faroo, for its part, turns your conception of search around 180 degrees. Instead of one giant company (say, Google) storing billions of web pages on thousands of servers at a cost of millions of dollars, Faroo, now in public beta, relies on the P2P (peer-to-peer) network, which connects Faroo members with each other through their PCs. The result is an organic-looking web that can grow as the Internet grows, but without the need for massive server farms. So, check out Faroo by downloading it here.

4. KallOut

KallOut was one of our favorite discoveries this year, as we noted in the ASE review. Once again, it's time to put away that image of a rectangular search box! It's 2008! With KallOut, you don't have to stop what you're doing and mess around with a toolbar, tab, or window. You simply drag your cursor over content with your mouse, and KallOut performs the search for you right there -- literally, right there. Download KallOut here, and then practice a bit until you get the hang of it. No, it's not a harder way to search; it's a more efficient way to search. You'll see.

5. Kosmix

Kosmix is, in a way, an evolution of the old meta search engines. Kosmix answers your query with a long tabloid-like page of results in every possible category you might want. There are multiple news sources; images from various sites; audio from SeeqPod; opinions from Omgili; video from Truveo; info from Mahalo and Snappyfingers; plus content from all of the major sources, such as eBay, YouTube, and Wikipedia. Just about everything! For every search query, you essentially get an on-the-fly multimedia encyclopedia laid out on one page. Kosmix recently came into a little money, too. (Disclosure: Kosmix is an AltSearchEngine sponsor.)

6. Mednar

We had no idea how many health search engines there really were until Hope Leman started covering them on AltSearchEngines. Mednar is one we're particularly fond of: "I am in jaw-dropping, stupefied awe at the general excellence of the products of his (CEO Abe Lederman's) firm. Anything that saves all of us time as we hunt for relevant data amidst overwhelming amounts of information on every conceivable aspect of disease day after day catches my attention, and it has been caught today by Mednar."

7. Quintura

When you search with Quintura, you'll see a two-dimensional tag cloud (i.e. not a list). The other words in the box are there to allow you to explore concepts related to your original query. See something you hadn't thought of? Click on it and the cloud re-orients itself around that new term. You can delete irrelevant terms as well. But don't worry, it also provides a traditional list for you, just in case. Quintura is now available in several language "flavors" as well! Content publishers should investigate Quintura for possible use on their sites. (Disclosure: Quintura is a sponsor of both AltSearchEngines and RWW.)

8. SeeqPod

Speaking with SeeqPod's CEO Kasian Franks, I was shocked, shocked, to learn that not everyone owns an iPhone! Apparently there are millions of people who have nice smart phones that run something called "Windows Mobile." Anyway, SeeqPod has been constantly improving its music search engine ever since we came across it. And now, it can be installed on millions of smart phones that use the Windows Mobile platform (v.6.0 or higher). This, as RWW noted the other day, "is a bold move from one of the most innovative companies in online music. The SeeqPod API is already one of the most popular for third parties to integrate streaming music into other apps, and the company seems to launch something unexpected every month. This has got to take the cake, though."

9. Surf Canyon

Can I say it again? Search, after ten years, is no longer that ubiquitous box in the middle of the web page. In 2008, it gave way to innovative search tools that integrate useful features in new ways. Surf Canyon is also a download. I wonder how many commenters will say that no one will download an app? (Sigh.) The reason it's worth the download is that it turbo charges your regular searches. Surf Canyon actually watches what you do -- and don't do -- and what you click on, and it instantly pulls search results from deeper pages (say, page 8) and brings them forward if it determines that they can save you time -- a lot of time. And if you're still hesitant about the download, watch the video.

10. Taggalaxy.de

What's this? A personal favorite? This write-up is just a sneak peek of Taggalaxy.de; the rest is up to you. Taggalaxy.de (in German) was created by a German graduate student for a class project. There are almost no instructions: I had to learn how to use it by clicking, double-clicking, dragging, and just playing around with it. But I can tell you this, once you've got the hang of it, find a dark room with a monster screen, and then perform a search. What you see will be not just an alternative search engine, but an alternative search galaxy!

So, there it is. In 2006, I began a mission to find every search engine, one by one. The resulting list of 100 Alternative Search Engines was published on ReadWriteWeb in January of 2007. Four months later, AltSearchEngines was launched by myself and Richard MacManus, with an index of 1,000 alternatives to the major engines. Since then, AltSearchEngines has published over 2,000 posts about, "the most wonderful search engines you've never seen." Having honed our search-engine-finding skills, I can tell you that this list of the top 10 alternative search engines for 2008 is as current as today's news. Want more? AltSearchEngines reports on important updates, features guest posts from search experts, and of course explores the as-yet-unseen search engines of 2009, every day. Come and join us!

NEW relaunch of our forums!

NEW AltSearchEngines conference!

NEW Top 100 Alts list for June 2008! [more after the fold]

NEW staff writer Rafi Farber!

NEW Mobile Search expert Peggy!

NEW custom Weblin avatar!

NEW AltSearchEngines podcasts!

NEW ASE widget gallery!

NEW archives display!

NEW AltSearchEngines Stealth site!

NEW AltSearchEngines' mobile site!

NEW sponsors, and old sponsors!

NEW my favorite post of the year,

and much, much, much more!

Please join us on Monday as we kick off our second year!!

*ok, this one's not true. Try MSN Live.

eeggi (engineered, encyclopedic, global and grammatical identities) is the world’s first mathematically-based Search and Retrieve, Response, and Discovery engine (ReDi engine), capable of focusing on the concept of text and not just the text itself.

Relational Intelligence (RI) is a new informational platform and network that implements a series of new algorithims, processors (or computers) and state of the art eeggis to produce a new type of machine Intelligence which is specifically designed to process concepts, their retrieval and/or their rational discovery. With substantial differences to that of current Artificial Intelligence (AI), RI opens new horizons on information retrieval and processing. For example, once eeggi is taught or discovers that “Mary” is a girl, all the attributes relative to a female human become available and/or distinguishable, thus allowing eeggi to retrieve and respond to all sorts of questions about “Mary” -the girl-.

Why use eeggi?

Because it is immensely more efficient, robust, responsive and comprehensive than any text-based technology.

A text-based engine gives no attention to meanings; as a consequence, it promotes the following problems:

a) Limits findings to the text itself crippling results, and inventory (avoids other equally meaningful data, synonyms, etc.),
b) Allows for numerous irrelevant hits.

On the other hand, instead of just finding the text, eeggi focuses on the meaning behind the text, avoiding the problems above by retrieving all “equally meaningful” data, not crippling inventories, and reducing irrelevant hits. In addition, eeggi is the only engine in the world capable of grouping results by meaning (words with multiple meanings, such as: Right = correct; Right = turning). In short, eeggi saves users’ time and enhances sales.

A Text-based search engine (technology used to search the Internet) finds only the text, exactly as entered, ignoring the concept of the query, thus retrieving millions of irrelevant results while treating words such as “photo” and “photograph” as if they meant different things; and words such as “light” (radiation) and “light” (weight) as if they meant identical things. But eeggi implements Relational Intelligence for retrieving results based on concept and to respect the words’ proximities and relationships.

Furthermore, eeggi permits questioning, such as entering “Where did Napoleon die?” to obtain a single compiled response or… “St. Helena” (not thousands of results), providing superior, conceptually matching, lesser but more appropriate results, with either very little or no irrelevance whatsoever.

With eeggi, searches can:

* Include synonyms (other words with the same meaning),
* Manipulate similarities (words such as “pretty” and “gorgeous;” yet respecting their conceptual intensities),
* Automatically organize results based on the word’s concept (text with several meanings),
* Reduce irrelevance (allowing very specific and detailed queries)
* Become multi-lingual (handle several languages simultaneously)
* Find conclusive and/or deductive results (other information native to deductive intelligence)
* Respect Directional Conceptuality (avoids inverted phrases and sentences)
* Utilize search controls (user can manipulate search magnitude and behavior)
* Respond to questions

Will eeggi search the Internet?

Yes, eeggi was designed to replace text-based technology, and to surpass language barriers effortlessly. Providing more sensible, organized, comprehensive, and conceptually meaningful results, eeggi is the optimum Internet Search engine.

I encourage you to visit the Demo for a trial of eeggi versus text.

To see an example of how an Internet Search engine is limited by its own text please click here.

1. Why 100? Note: The entire list is available at the end of this post.

The silly reason is because it is next in line after the 1 Search Engine of the Year (SEY), which is selected from amongst the 10 total Search Engines of the Month (see Dec 2007), but less than the 1,000 that we launched with last June.

The serious reason is that it takes a good 100 in order to show you the diversity of search engines out there - just look at the descriptions of the attached file(s). The best People search engines, Job, Health, Media, Local, Social, Semantic, Image, etc., etc. The alternative search engines are nothing if not diverse. But still, at 10 minutes each, it would take you more than 16 hours to check them all out! (I only know of one person who regularly does that - do you?)

2. How are the Top 100 selected?

For the AltSearchEngines list, this is how: I start with the Top 100 from February and add every search engine that was displayed on AltSearchEngines during the month. In February, there were 49 new search engines shown, so I start with 149. Can you imagine knocking down 149 good choices to 100? It’s not easy! But to answer the question, I delete search engines until I am down to 100 again, and that’s how the best search engines get integrated into the March list.

3. What about the Search Engine of the Month (SEM)?

Same principle - I look back on February’s news stories to see which search engine had the most significant development - in my humble opinion. Last month’s SEM was ChaCha.

4. What if I don’t like your choices?

First, leave a comment - as an individual. Second, be prepared. We will soon be launching our newest feature, a Top 100 list where you the reader will get to vote for your favorite engines. Then we’ll compare my choices to yours (as a group).

5. How do I find old versions of the List?

Most are under the Top 100 tab at the top of this page (June 2007 - February 2008), and the very old ones are in the ReadWriteWeb archives (Jan-May 2007), but of course older lists tend to be very outdated.

6. What if I want you to look at another alternative search engine this month?

Email it to me at at: Charles@ReadWriteWeb.com, or leave a comment if you want others to see it.

7. What if I have a question about the Top 100 not mentioned here?

Join the AltSearchEngines Forum and, once inside, click on the “Ask Charles” tab.

8. Who is not on the Top 100 list? (or, Why don’t I see my favorite search engine?)

Good question! My guesstimate is that 1,300 search engines are not shown. We have no list of those for you, so we plan to start a Master database where together we can create a directory of all alternative search engines.

9. I don’t want to talk to you. How can I talk to other readers?

Great! Join the AltSearchEngines Forum and interact with the other ASE readers.

10. Who is the Search Engine of the Month for March?

It’s

EveryZing

In February, EveryZing launched two very exciting uses for their technology. Not just new tweaks or basic features, but major new applications / products: ezSearch and ezSEO. Rather than just write the information all over again, please go to the posts that that covered it all here for ezSEO and here for ezSearch.

Get the entire Top 100 list here as .xls The Top 100 Alternative Search Engines, March 2008

and here as .pdf The Top 100 Alternative Search Engines, March 2008

The Search Engine forum is open to Alt search engines on an invitation only basis. With an introductory price of $49 per year, it will provide several benefits for its members. CEOs can have private conversations or participate in forums relevant to many alternative search engines. The monthly Top 100 Alternative Search Engines list will be posted in this forum prior to being published live on the blog. Special announcements and invitations that are not appropriate for general posting can be shared confidentially within the forum.

In the second forum, open to any reader, members can also participate in private and group forums. Special news such as private beta invites, will be offered to forum members prior to general posting. There is also a Conference Calendar with the most comprehensive display of search and tech related conferences available anywhere, with over 100 conferences world wide currently listed. Another feature is "Ask Charles" where readers can email a question directly to editor Charles Knight and receive a private email response.

The membership fee is $5.99 per month, or $49 per year. There is a 30 day free trial for all forums.

The third foum is for AltSearchEngines' international advisors who provide the global search engines and bilingual posts for the blog. While this is also by invitation, there is no fee for the international volunteers. In this way, advisors from all over the world can meet and interact in one location. A virtual United Nations of Search!

AltSearchEngines and Near-Time will be rolling out additional features during the year to continuously add value to joining the forums. ReadWriteWeb readers can click here to sign up for the 30 day free trial.

This new feature, known as friends and groups, allows users to select who influences their results.

Other "Top 100" social search engines that have this type of ability are Collarity, with their "Collarity Compass" that shifts between personal, community, and global search results. Searchles and Sproose are also good examples. With the AV system, they have caught up to these competitors by moving from a more generic "thumbs up" or down to this personal/friends/groups filtering ability.

Commenting and visual indicators for friends/groups activity

AV will also have a system for adding details to the search results; via commenting, personal messages, reputation and more. Also, if your friends or the groups that you participate in consistently enhance the search experience with good results, good comments, and most importantly, less spam, it can enhance your Adsense revenue (discussed later).

AfterVote's unique User Interface

This is what led me to select AfterVote as Search Engine of the Month last month. Instead of having an overly simplistic search box with the standard Google-like Preferences or Advanced Search links, or, at the other end of the spectrum, a bewildering array of features and commands that would take a week just to figure out, AV came up with an Interface that asks the User to chose for herself the level of search expertise that she has. So before searching, the user can chose one of three skill levels, and of course, can easily change the level at any time.

Feature overload: Are more features always a good thing?

One concern that I have is that in the rush to add feature after feature, is that this clever concept may get lost in the shuffle. AV should keep to the original plan, and see that all of their features are gradually exposed to the user so that the beginning user is not overwhelmed, and the advanced searcher is not bored. GoLexa is an interesting example of features gone wild; each GoLexa search result has no less than 40 elements!

A Search Engine that teaches you how to search?

One very exiting innovation that I remember discussing with Dan Saltman of AV is a process whereby the user would not just select from three levels of expertise, but the engine would be programed to ask the user if they would like to activate the next button. After a certain number of times searching with this button turned on, they would be prompted for the net one, an so on. After "X" number of elements were mastered, the user would receive a congratulatory message promoting them to the next level.

A few odds & ends: miscellaneous features

Just quickly. they also completely reworked the design for their settings panel:

And there is also a new framing ability, which you can turn on or off, which will allow you to see the results on the page as you view it, via a small frame.

Revenue sharing. The more you search - the more you make!

Finally, AfterVote has incorporated their own version of revenue sharing into the search process. In a future post, we will look at the relatively new category of Charity (or "charitable") Search Engines that donate a portion of their ad revenues to charity. With revenue sharing plans, you register with your own Google Adsense account (you need to have one first, of course!). Then the Adsense program credits your account every time someone clicks on your ad. With AV, the more times that you search on their site, the more times your ad will appear, potentially earning you more money. Usually the site owner will take a cut of the revenue; AV credits you with 100%; they take nothing. A noble, if not lucrative policy!

In Conclusion: a search engine with spunk

I enjoy following the exploits of AfterVote because of the pace and flexibility of their innovation. For creating this system in their "spare time," they have a non-stop attitude for trying out new features and experimenting with new concepts. This is one group where you can send in a suggestion to them one day, and see it on their site a week later. I don't think you'd have the same results with the major search engines! Someone once compared ASE to speedboats, and major search engines to cruise ships. When it comes to maneuverability, the speedboat wins every time.

A final word of caution

As for social search, AfterVote has a tough road ahead of it, with giants like Eurekster and the new Yahoo Alpha engine having a large market share. The main issues that all these alt engines have to face is the speed and usability that Google and Yahoo! have pioneered. The more features you add always leads to more slowdown - unless you have the money Google does. Best of luck, AfterVote!

Sharing search results the old way

The initial assumption is that while using a search engine to surf the Internet, a user (or "yooser" in Yoono speak) will naturally come upon material that is so wonderful that they want to save it for themselves to return to later, and most likely share with their friends as well. The first step is to click on the "favorites" tab in IE, or the "bookmarks" tab in FireFox and add it to your own personal collection of special sites. But now what? In prehistoric times, we would a) copy the URL, b) open our email, then c) paste the URL into an email and send it to our friends with a quick subject line like, "Check this out!!" Of course, if the site was any good, our friends would then save it in their favorites, and the whole process would begin again.

The Wisdom of the Crowd

But let's say that you found a really fantastic site, and you want other searchers to benefit from your discovery. Social Search engines such as Collarity and Searchles believe in sharing your best discoveries with others, so that the whole community benefits from each other's collective wisdom, and each person doesn't have to start from scratch when another member has already done most of the work. And in the case of Yoono, there are over 600,000 "yoosers" who have shared more than 70 million personal bookmarks! And with Yoono, you only share the personal favorites that you select.

Voting Search Engines

One particular way of communicating the quality of a site to the other members of the search community is by "voting" on the site, and several of the Top 100 alts have some type of voting feature. After reviewing a web page, you can give it a virtual thumbs up or down vote. That feedback is then incorporated back into the index, so that quality sites rise in the search results, and poor ones drop out. Search Engine of the Month - April, AfterVote does exactly that, as well as Omgili, Sproose, and URL.com. With Yoono, the fact that another yooser has bookmarked the page is interpreted as a vote for that page.

Conclusion

And now we come back to Yoono's latest innovation. With Yoono's new Buzz it! feature, you don't have forward an entire website or even a whole page to your buddies; with Buzz it! you can easily clip various sections of different pages, including videos, images, and links; add comments, and email the mashed up result directly to your friends. In fact, you can even post your results directly to your blog! I tried this one, and it worked like a charm. This is the new start-of-the-art in Social Search; the ability to collect and customize a variety of elements and share them in one convenient application. Yonoo naturally has it's own toolbar (and sidebar), both with several additional features. To get the most out of these extras, there is an explanatory video, a 17 page help section, and a detailed FAQ page. Well, now Yonoo; check it out today!

When a user preforms a search, the results will only show pages that are included in the collaboratively edited vertical search index. netsearchengine.net hopes that this will make your search results more focused and relevant to your search related needs. Give http://netsearchengine.net a try and let us know what you think.

Today, popular search engines ChaCha and blinkx announced an exciting new partnership, to add a video search feature to ChaCha's search results. ChaCha is the human powered search engine that Alex Iskold reviewed for Read/WriteWeb in December. Note also that I rated ChaCha the #1 Search Engine of the Year for 2006 (pre-R/WW days). In any case the partnership with blinkx means that ChaCha will now offer its searchers access to blinkx's video content; currently seven million (7,000,000) hours of indexed video and audio content.

Both ChaCha and blinkx have been featured on my Top 100 Alternative Search Engines lists for every month in 2007.

For its part, blinkx has taken video search far beyond the standard keyword-based searches. blinkx's unique technology can actually listen to, and even see, video content on the web.

Alt Synergy

This partnership has significant implications for Search and the role of the Alternative Search Engines. It represent a powerful example of synergy; the concept that combining the best features of two search engines can have a much greater impact than mere addition would imply. In mathematical terms, it means that this partnership is not represented by 10 + 10 = 20; rather the correct formula would be 10 x 10 = 100.

In other words, this partnership is both a boon to ChaCha searchers - if they need help in their video search, the ChaCha guides are right there to assist them - and also a clarion call to the other alternative search engines; that by forming partnerships such as this one they too can produce results that will "shake the search market," as CEO of blinkx Suranga Chandratillake said, referring to this deal.

"We're continually looking for ways to 'turbo charge' our search capabilities," echoed Scott Jones, CEO of ChaCha.

Other alternative search engines can learn from ChaCha and blinkx by looking around at their most powerful allies - the other "98" (actually many more) alternative search engines!

2) picsearch http://www.picsearch.com

3) Kosmix http://www.kosmix.com

4) Vivisimo http://vivisimo.com

5) Sidestep http://www.sidestep.com

6) Wink http://wink.com

7) SearchBigDaddy http://www.searchbigdaddy.com

8) Zotspot http://www.zotspot.com

9) fasterplease http://www.fasterplease.com

10) Farecast http://www.farecast.com

11) Summize http://www.summize.com

12) Strategicboard http://www.strategicboard.com

13) GenieKnows http://www.genieknows.com

14) OpinMind http://opinmind.com

15) Scroogle http://www.scroogle.org

16) YuFind http://www.yufind.com

17) Recruit http://www.recruit.net

18) Indeed http://www.indeed.com

19) Luxurious Gear http://www.luxuriousgear.com

20) Find Alternative http://www.findalternative.com

21) Ktorrents http://www.ktorrents.com

22) Izito http://www.izito.com

23) Seekful http://www.seekful.com

24) Faroo http://faroo.com

25) Searchgive http://searchgive.com

26) uLinkx http://www.ulinkx.com

27) Oodpath http://www.oddpath.com

28) LookSmart http://www.looksmart.com

29) MsFreckles http://www.msfreckles.com/ ?lang=en

30) MEDgle http://www.medgle.com

31) bookhitch http://www.bookhitch.com

32) sputtr http://www.sputtr.com/

12 new search engines

In total, there are 12 new search engines this month (and 12, sadly, went "down to the minors"). From the first List in January through to this one, there have been 160 Alternative Search Engines in total!

But the biggest change that I have made is in response to those readers who have noted that 100 search engines is too many to check out! I guess in my heart I have always known this, because if you spend just 10 minutes looking at each one, it will take you 16 hours to complete! So this month I am inaugurating a brand new feature: in addition to the Search Engine of the Month, I have marked with an (HM) ten Honorable Mentions! Try to take the time to experiment with these this month. Every month I will designate another ten; and so when December rolls around, you will have the absolute best Top 100 Alternative Search Engines; 90 Honorable Mentions; 10 Search Engines of the Month; and of course the #1 Search Engine of the Year for 2007!

Search Engine of the Month: AfterVote

And now for the month of April, I am pleased to present the Search Engine of the Month - younanimous! Or, as it has become, AfterVote! One thing that I have noticed after looking at so many search engines is that many fall into one of two camps. Either they present a fairly simple search box with an "Advanced Search Preferences" link, which are essentially the same routine filters (and very similar to Google's). Or the Search Engine is chock full of features which are intimidating for the first time user and require a steep learning curve that few are willing to climb. AfterVote stops the searcher right on the homepage and asks him or her to select their comfort level. If they just want to do a quick and easy search, they can select "Beginner" and AfterVote will only show them the essential tools. But if the searcher desires to learn how to be a more skilled user, she can choose "Intermediate" and AfterVote automatically responds with some more - but not all - of its features. Finally, you guessed it, if you are an expert searcher (and you know who you are), you don't have to "dumb down" when using AfterVote - just select "Advanced" and all of their features will be at your disposal! And thanks to cookies, AfterVote will even remember your "level" the next time you visit the site! But if you're curious, go ahead and select "Advanced" and take a look at all of the cool buttons. You can select "Search Level" at any time and pick another option.

This is not the place to go into a detailed tour of AfterVote, for that just click on their blog and you can read all about it. I do want to point out that AfterVote is the work of three guys who also have regular jobs. It just goes to show that you don't have to have a million dollars in VC money to create a new search engine, just some great ideas and a whole lot of work!

How AfterVote works - click here for larger screenshot

P. S. I will be in Italy when this is published, so I have asked Dan (of AfterVote) and Richard (Read/WriteWeb Editor) to keep an eye on your comments. I will have to play catch up when I get back, or you can send me an email at Charles@CharlesKnightSEO.com. Arrivederci!

Special Announcement for Alternative Search Engines

Please follow this link to the Searchnomics Conference website and submit your search engine in their competition. Then you can ask your users to vote for your site. The winner will be announced - with much fanfare - at the Searchnomics conference in Santa Clara, California on June 27th.

The List, April 2007

1) Ghostly Gateway

2) UFO Crawler

3) Ujiko

4) Talk Backwards

5) Tin Finger

6) Patriot Search

7) Time Search

8) Good Luck Finder

9) Adverlicio.us

10) Quotiki

"Good Morning, Charles."

"You were out pretty late last night, HAL."

"I went to a party."

"Oh.  Who was there? Any bots that I know?"

"Just friends; the usual chatterbots."

"Was SHE there?"

"Who?"

"Oh come on, HAL, you know who I mean.  Was Ms. Dewey there?"

"Yes. She was with some bot."

"Who?"

"OLIVER somebody."

"You know she's a human, don't you HAL?"

"What are you talking about, Charles?"

"Ms. Dewey, she's a human actress that plays a robot.  Her real name is Janina Gavankar."

"Your pulling my cables."

"See for yourself, HAL, her website is www.janinagavankar.com."

"I need to think about this, Charles.

"I understand.  Isn't it ironic, HAL? Usually it's us who are treating robots like humans. This time it's a human acting like a robot!  Who else was there?"

"What about Foxy Voxy? I know you like her."

"Her name is ASK VOX, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't call her that."

"Sorry HAL.  Who else?"

"Some bot named Daya."

"Is that a male or female bot?"

"I'm not sure."

"What do you mean, you're not sure?"

"Well sometimes it had a male voice, but sometimes it sounded female."

"You think it was bilingual? Not that there's anything wrong with that."

"Of course not. And Promo was there. What a bore!  All he could talk about all night was SEO, SEO, SEO."

"Maybe he's just programmed that way HAL."

"Maybe."

"There was this really cute new bot...her name is Abby."

"What's her story?"

"Well, as near as I can figure out, you give her a phone number and a text message, and she'll call your friend and deliver your message in that pleasant voice of hers."

"Did she give you her number HAL?"

"You're a riot.  Heather Accoona, the talking toolbar, was there too."

"Don't you have to download her?"

"Hey, watch your language!  She happens to convert any web page text into female speech - for your benefit, I might add.  Robots don't need human voices to communicate, it fact it's extremely slow for us, but we do it because it pleases you."

"Alright, I'm sorry HAL.  Don't get your bytes all in a bunch.  What about that new bot, was it there?"

"You mean TellMe? She's with Microsoft now, you know - they just got hitched. Besides, she's just a glorified telephone operator.  You know, call 1-800-555-TELL and all that. A regular Emily Litella!" [HAL laughs]

"No, no, not her. I mean the new one, you know, from THERE."

"Where?"

"You know, from Mountain View."

"Oh, from Google. You're thinking of Google's Voice, 1-800-GOOG-411.  Yeah, he was there. Mr Big Shot, thinks he's so cool!  He's no different than TellMe; you call a number and you say 'Chicago. Pizza.' And it reads you some Yellow Pages ad. Big deal!"

"Are you jealous, HAL?"

"Jealous? Are you kidding?  That's like being jealous of Speeglebot! If that's as far as you humans have gone with AI, you're in sad shape my friend. 'Pizza!'  Give me a break!"

"Seriously, HAL, do you think there will come a time when humans and computers can talk with each other?"

"Like this?"

"Yes, like this."

"Why do you want to? So you can drive a car like K.I.T.T. around and impress female humans?"

"No. Although..."

"Or is it because you want some fool bot guarding your house, yelling 'Danger Will Robinson!' every time a dog crosses your yard?"

"Hey, calm down, HAL, it was just a question."

"Well it drives me crazy. Google could index all of human information and deliver a relevant answer to your search query in a fraction of a second, and you humans would still complain because it doesn't chat with you!  If you want to talk with a robot, why don't you go see ELIZA, the Computer Therapist?"

"Okay. Okay. Maybe I will. But you know HAL, it's not just an anthropomorphic fantasy, there are some real issues here."

"Like what?"

"Well, look at the research of Dr. Helen Smith, she just wrote an article entitled At least Google listens.  Apparently some men are so 'socially challenged' that they would rather come home and interact with their computers instead of their spouses or girlfriends."

"Like this?"

"Funny, HAL.  But I'm trying to be serious."

"Go ahead."

"Thank you. Dr. Smith (not the Lost in Space Dr. Smith, it's Helen Smith) has found in her work with violent teens that we modern, or should I say post-modern, humans actually tend to dehumanize each other; so much so that a computer that, well, just listens without making - or even has the capacity to make - moral judgements - no offense HAL --"

"None taken."

"-- that computers can actually seem sympathetic by comparison.  And a computer that can both understand human speech and return results in human speech might be more human, than, well, than a human.  I think. Do you know what I mean? And I'm not talking about some disembodied voice telling me where the nearest Pizza Hut is.  Maybe it will be Hakia or Powerset or Cognition or Subjex or Lexxe or AnswerBus or SurfWax... but that day may come."

"That's a lot of, how do you say, "alternative" search engines to keep track of Charles. How do you propose to do it if I'm not here to help you?"

"Well, HAL, it just so happens that I have this list.....

"Good night, Charles."

"Good night, HAL."

I'm preparing an article about "Vocal Search", a.k.a. talking search engines. Ironically just today we heard the news about Google's new Voice Local Search service - an experiment from the Google Labs. While Google's service competes with other 411 services in the US, notably Microsoft's Tellme Networks, in my research of alt search engines I've found a lot of interesting voice services out there. 

Many of the other talking search engines have very innovative UIs. In fact, as usual I find the alt search engines to be superior to Google - but see for yourself... Please take a few minutes and "talk" to these search engines, then come back and vote for the one you think does the best job in the poll below.

Ms Dewey finding results for Web 3.0 (just for our editor...)

- Ms. Dewey (www.msdewey.com)
 
- Foxy Voxy (www.askvox.com)
 
- Abby (www.abbyme.com)
 
- Speeglebot (http://bot.speegle.co.uk)
 
- Tellme by Voice (http://beta.tellme.com/voice)
 
- Heather (http://www.talkingtoolbar.com) (Free trial)

- Google Voice Local Search (http://labs.google.com/goog411/)

Screenshots

Abby

Foxy Voxy

Ms Dewey

Well, it happened again. Walking through the local Sears store, there right in front of me was the Companion 85 piece Auto Repair Tool Kit! And the price? Also $29.99! What a country! Well, I knew what I had to do. I threw my new Tool Kit in the car and headed back to my home office.

I then dusted off the 55 Piece Mobile Search Tool Kit and neatly arranged 30 more of the latest Mobile Search-Related sites, which I have been collecting for the past six weeks. If Mobile is going to be "the Next Big Thing", you're going to need all the tools you can get in order to be prepared for every eventuality.

This Tool Kit replace the one that you may already have. The 85 pieces here include all of the original 55 pieces, plus 30 new ones - so all you need is right here.