Kartoo Search Engine Presents Results as a Map

cdupree writes "I've just run across a search engine called Kartoo---anyone else know it? Apparently it's been up since April 25. It presents its results in a graphical fashion, sort of like a map, allowing you to refine your query interactively. Admittedly, the "working" picture is a bit dorky, but the site is not dripping with ads (except for itself), and it's interesting to see the connections it finds when you enter, for example, "slashdot." My initial take on the thing is, it looks pretty, it presents the standard information in a new and different manner, but I haven't used it enough to get much in-depth knowledge of how best to use it. Has anyone had experience with this method of presenting search results? Is there background available on the folks who produced it beyond the trivial amount on the web site?" This sounds like a plug, but the few searches I tried with this engine to my surprise turned up interesting, relevant results. Update: 05/28 14:29 GMT by T : Laurent Baleydier adds: "Since last night, kartoo's requests have been multiplied by 20. At this moment, we can't respond to all those requests. We really apologize and we are doing as fast as possible in order to give you the best services."

My results

[pjdepasq]

I just used Mozilla RC2 (on Mandrake 8.1) to try a search on myself. It was the non-Flash version and I had to dismiss something like 50+ Javascript popup messages.

Needless to say, I'm already not a fan of the site. Perhaps in time it will prove to be more usable.

inevitable slashdotting....

[Anthony Boyd]

Assuming it'll be slashdotted, for the curious, what it does is something like a graphical Alexa. It shows the main thing you searched for as a sort of you-are-here dot that you can click on, and then it shows related sites and keywords in a connect-the-dots type of image. So I entered slashdot, and got slashdot.org as the main result, but with "linux" and some other keywords around it. I clicked "linux" and got a new graphic with some linux sites, OSDN, and some other related stuff.

It does seem useful, but on Windows, I'd rather just click the "Related" button in IE and get Alexa's list. Here on my Linux box, this is a good substitute for Opera and Konq to use.

it's a meta crawler, not an indexer...

[BluSkreen]

It uses and displays the results of other indexers or crawlers such as Google. It's basically a meta front end for searches.

The Flash version is a bit slow, even on huge pipes and a faster client.

Mirror

[Triskaidekaphobia]

Since we can now add "Search Engine" to the list of sites we've killed, here's a mirror [freesoftmag.com] of what the search results look like if you're lucky enough to get that far.

Can't quite see the point of it myself. I like a ranked list, like Google.

Do not try in recent mozilla

[fire-eyes]

I don't have flash, so i used the html version. Searched for "linux" and it came up, said results 1-10. But there was nothing displayed. moved my mouse around and i got an incredible ammount of annoying ass javascript error boxes, an endless stream of one after another. Couldn't get to X to close the tab, couldn't close mozilla the proper way, had to kill it.

Bad first impression.

Frankly I think it should have warned me about needing javascript or similar stupid shit. I wouldn't have bothered.

Go google.

A way around the slashdotting

[sweatyboatman]

there's an HTML version that doesn't seem to be as hard on the server as the Flash version. At least I was able to access it with no problem.

KartOO HTML [kartoo.com]

Look but don't touch, though, at least in Moz RC3. If you mouse-over one of the links in the map, it'll bomb you with a series of java alerts.

Sweat

Re:Great job guys...

[Triskaidekaphobia]

Possibly [slashdot.org]

More then Google

[ChaseTec]

If you click on the Options button at Kartoo you can select which search engines to use.

time waster....

[DeanOh]

OK: The interface is non-intuitive, the 'mapped' results are inscrutable (and mostly irrlevant), and they homepage contained a whine about the 20-fold increase in traffic since the slashdot article appeared. Not ready for prime time. And located in France (does this mean it was a fine French whine??). I'll stick with Google......