It seems as though the search engine landscape continues to grow. Recently, at SES 2007, I learned that the top four engines make up nearly 98% of all searches. This communicates to me that adding another search engine to the mix isn’t going to create a great difference. Sites like Ask.com have chosen to become more unique in its search style. The design is more eye-appealing than Google, and actually has much to offer. In this Google world we live in, it’s imperative that smaller engines fill a specific niche to help gain market share.
Enter Tafiti beta.
Tafiti is Microsoft’s latest attempt to capitalize on sites like Ask that offer a unique search engine. Tafiti is based on Microsoft’s own Flash-type viewer that users must download before using the site. This site offers a few key unique features for searchers.
First, it allows users to save certain search results. Users must drag the item they want to keep to the glass shelf on the right. Users have the option of saving multiple results in each shelf. This could be useful when compiling research by allowing users to come back to saved results.
Second, the site offers a unique news search. When I search for the term “New York”, I was greeted with a pleasant newspaper looking page. This allowed me to quickly browse through clippings from various sites. I found this portion of Tafiti quite useful.
Finally, I was impressed overall if the design and usability of the site. I don’t recommend using Tafiti if you want to search for something quickly. However, I do recommend giving it a try and testing out the look and feel. Take a look at Tafiti. What other features do you enjoy about the site?