Searchles: The Next Generation of Search? - The Community
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Before actually trying out the search engine, I thought I’d poke around for a bit and see what I turned up. Groups seem to be an important part of Searchles, so I clicked on a link labeled “Groups” and was rewarded with seven pages of them, in no particular order. They were as specific as ones for heart surgeons and as random as one called “science stuff.” There’s a respectable number of groups related to programming, some that focus on history, and, not surprisingly, a few dedicated to searching and to Web 2.0. I found a few that looked like the kinds of groups I might want to join, so I clicked on their links.
Here’s a screen shot for the group labeled “technology:”
Sorry for the blurriness. Anyway, on the left hand side you can see the handle of the group’s owner and a list of group members. In the center you see recent posts, with links to each post; some are news stories, while others are event announcements. That little box to the right of each post tells you what tags they’ve been given (up to a certain number; if it has a lot of tags it lists the first few and mentions how many more there are). It also gives you options to save it, comment, on it, and share it, among others (which you can only do if you’re a registered member of Searchles, of course).
Well, at that point I decided I really should register to test it out. Registration is easy; the search engine just wants your email address, your online handle, and your password (entered twice to confirm). You also have to agree with Searchles’ Terms of Use. These are pretty vanilla. Among other things, Searchles does indicate that it respects copyright, and includes an address to email if you feel yours has been violated.
After you register, Searchles wants you to add a “bookmarklet” to your browser to make it easier for you to submit pages to the community where you can “tag it, describe it, share it, and post it to groups.” You can just click past that point. Here’s the plain page I got for myself after registering:
On the left are spots for related people and related groups. On the right are columns for my posts, my friends, my groups, my friends’ friends, and my fans, as well as related tags. The middle area is for keeping track of my posts. Near the top are links that let me edit a “profile” and upload a picture. I put the profile in quotes because when I clicked on it, I noticed that there were places for only first and last name, zip code, email address (already filled in), location, slogan, and display name.
When you do get around to filling in the spots on the right, you might want to be careful. I clicked on one user’s name and could easily go to whatever he had listed under his posts, friends, groups, etc. I honestly haven't decided whether that’s a bug or a feature.
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