When we’re used to search engines working in one particular way, it’s hard to visualize how search might work differently. Sure, we can imagine search engines delivering more relevant and accurate results, but how will they do it? Quintura offers one possibility.
The company was founded a little over a year ago by three Russians involved with computers and neural networks. It boasts a search engine with patent-pending technology based on a decade of research conducted by these three gentlemen. The whole idea behind Quintura's approach is to make Web search easier and faster by adding a visual element: a cloud of keywords surrounding your main search through which you can navigate to increase the relevance of your results.
"Our team approached the problem of finding Internet-based information and entertainment from the standpoint of the user," explained Yakov Sadchikov, CEO and co-founder of Quintura. "We strived to build something that made it as easy as possible for the user to find exactly what they are looking for as quickly as possible. We also wanted to make the user experience very visual and more enjoyable, so we built in visual navigation technologies that are more appealing to users."
While Quintura features Russian founders and a Russian management team, it is a U.S. corporation with offices in Alexandria, Virginia. Not surprisingly, though, its software development operations are located in Moscow. It has received backing from Mangrove Capital Partners, who also invested in Skype early on. The phrase "web 2.0" has been tossed around almost to the point of making it meaningless; even so, Quintura made it onto a "Sacred Cow Dung" open directory of all things web 2.0. You can find it listed under search engines - along with no less than 174 other search engines. So Quintura is not uniquely web 2.0.
It's not unique in taking a visual approach to search either. As Search Engine Watch correctly points out, Kartoo, Mooter, and WebBrain went live with a visual approach to search before Quintura. So what does Quintura offer that's different? To understand that point, you need to take the search engine for a test run.
Choosing Keywords 
