ReadWriteWeb

To be precise, Ambiently is not actually a search engine, it's a "web discovery engine." What's the difference? A search engine answers your manually typed-in query with a list of links, but a discovery engine provides relevant content directly related to the web page you're currently viewing. At least that's how the company behind Ambiently describes their new search tool. However, since Ambiently also returns a list of links we think it's fine if you want to call it a search engine.

Naming aside, what's interesting about this search tool is that it's not a destination site you have to remember to visit. Instead, you activate your searches by just clicking on an Ambiently bookmarklet to launch a page of related links.

At SXSW Interactive yesterday, I met Curtis Spencer (@cruxlux) in the hall between panels. We sat down and spoke for a few minutes and he told me about an application he was developing called Cruxlux. The name describes what the application attempts to do: Lux for light and Crux for the decisive point. In essence, the goal of Cruxlux is to analyze the web page you are visiting, and scour other web sources for related stuff, then present that information to you, summarized, and without actually leaving the current page. Although technically in beta, it is available to use without registration.