A little while ago, I got an email inviting me to go to a secret URL and try out an unreleased Web service, one that tries to apply Digg-style voting to search results. The site has now gone live, so I’m free to write about it, and I have to say it’s an interesting idea, but not one that I’m convinced will work — or at least not the way the company behind it, called Coolchaser Corp., intends it to work (Note: the site was down the last time I checked, due to what appear to be server problems).
The service from url.com (which I think is kind of a dumb name) takes the search results from Google, MSN and Yahoo and aggregates them and then displays them on a page. When you follow one of the links, you get a small toolbar at the bottom of the window with two buttons — one with a thumbs-up icon for “good result” and one with a thumbs-down icon for “not so good” — and you get a small text box in which you can enter a comment.
The idea is that as people rate search results, those with more votes flow to the top of the aggregated page of links, and users can see how many people thought a particular page was a good result, and any comments they may have made. It’s an appealing idea, and it’s obvious from the url blog that the founders believe people are naturally good and that they want to help. But do enough of them fit that description to make the service worthwhile? I’m not sure.
Even if there aren’t enough people who want to vote, however, url.com still makes a pretty good multi-engine search — and if it adds further value, then so much the better. One of the only downsides is that some websites run frame-blockers that remove the toolbar, and so you can’t vote on them. Coolchaser also runs a service called ClipClip.com, which is sort of like Clipmarks and other products that let you clip, store and share data as you surf the Web.