A Snapshot of Snap, the New AJAX Search Engine
Snap is an AJAX based search engine combining techniques from Yahoo, Google and A9 to make a powerful user-friendly interface. The interface is very similar to Google reader, with the lens focusing on the first result on the right coloumn, and showing a snapshot of the page in the left one. The navigation is also very easy using keyboard up/down arrows to move between selection and enter to open result in a new page.
Snap is a very different way of searching, one we suspect will take a bit of getting use to. As you can imagine, we’ve done a ton of usability testing in developing Snap and here’s what we’ve learned: while Snap isn’t complicated, it is a different way of searching in which a little bit of orientation goes a long way to increasing satisfaction. So, we’ve tried to help introduce ourselves to you in a number of ways.
I found it a very intersting search experience, especially with their widgets : Snap Coupon Widget, Snap Navigation/Company Widget, Snap Map Widget, and the Snap Weather Widget. The only things missing is the relevant results, but I don't think this will be a major problem compared to what have been done on the frontend. Snap is an Idealab company, the solution have been developed in PHP.
Snap News is another snap experience to read news online using the same Snap technology for AJAX browsing, but this time showing both news excerpt and a screenshot of the source from where it have been taken. News are categorized in Top stories, world, U.S., Business, Sports and Entertainment. Easy to use, fast and will certainly be a competitor for Google news and similar services.
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