With all the publicity recently about Wolfram Alpha, the CRN Test Center came across
the relatively new Web site of a search aggregator called LeapFish. Wolfram Alpha
is, to use its own term, a computational knowledge engine, which actually bases
the results strictly from its own internal knowledge base -- no searching of the
Web at all. Conversely, LeapFish uses hyper-threading to communicate with multiple
search engines simultaneously, in real-time.
Still officially labeled beta, we briefly experimented with LeapFish and liked what
we saw. Although aggregator sites aren't new, its speed and clean interface make
LeapFish easy and pleasant to use. With the tagline "Just Type It," the search field
is originally filled in gray text with the reassuring "It's ok, you're not cheating
on Google..."
To start a search, users simply follow the tagline and -- just type it. As the query
is entered into the search box, results automatically begin to appear with Web results
on the left side and blog results underneath them, refreshing as each additional
letter is typed. The right side of the screen displays results for news, video and
images. There are also pertinent links for shopping and answers using eBay and Yahoo
answers, respectively.
One feature we really liked is being able to watch the video results (which appear
to be from YouTube) simply by hovering the cursor over the window.
As an aggregator, results aren't limited to Google; Radio buttons at the top of
the page allow the user to quickly switch among Yahoo and MSN also. With a simple
mouse click, the new results appear instantly.
Late last year, there was an accusation that an overzealous member of LeapFish's
sales team used click fraud to push ad sales. Ben Behrouzi, CEO of LeapFish's parent
company, DotNext, responded that this was the work of a single bad apple that has
been dealt with accordingly.
We don't know all the details revolving around that case, but as far as searching
the Web goes, we like the functionality the site offers.