Here’s Looking at You Search, Too

I’ve had the pleasure recently of chatting a bit with Yakov Sadchikov, CEO of Quintura, which offers a new search engine displaying results from various engines on a dynamic visual interface populated with links to related terms. As I noted to him, Quintura reminds me of Grokker, which I wrote a column about in May 2005 ("Here’s Looking at You, Search"). Part of what I wrote about Grokker applies here:

…There are new sites emerging that can display results visually, and while they may have limited appeal for the casual surfer (they won’t unseat the major engines), there are ways marketers can make use of them…

If you’re a marketer, or provide services to marketers, try a number of brand searches. It’s such a fresh perspective; you could spend the day or the month on this. But imagine the returns. For instance, you could identify new opportunities for building content based around concepts that you want to be better represented in search. You could also discover your brand is associated with terms countering what you think the brand stands for.

Yakov notes there are some significant differences between Quintura and Grokker, and I’ll explore those soon. But I’m technically on vacation, so a little leniency would be appreciated the next two weeks. Meanwhile, I welcome Yakov or others challenging my notion of such engines’ limited consumer appeal. I remain convinced that nearly all marketers could benefit tremendously from such services.