Four-year-old Vivisimo launched its new search service Clusty to the world today, giving users the ability to not only return individual results with every search but also automatically order the results into an expandable menu on the fly.
“The fast and friendly Clusty.com puts users back in control and ensures that they truly know the full extent of resources that are available to them in the vast online world,” said Raul Valdes-Perez, CEO of Vivisimo. “Clusty helps them zero in on what they were looking for and, often, leads them to discover new things along the way.”
According to Valdes-Perez, the engine was originally designed as a private engine for corporate users, but received a huge public response because it helped relieve information overload.
“The success of today’s search technology has left users awash in information. The net result is that users cannot or will not wade through all of the options a search engine offers up,” said Valdes-Perez.
A search for “love boat,” for example, returns roughly 4.5 million results using Google in list format only. Clusty returns results in a list format on the right-hand side of the page, but also clustered categories like, “Network, ABC,” “Love Boat Captain,” “TV Land,” “Cast, Reviews” and “Cruise Ships” on the left.
The new engine will be offered for free and supported by advertising revenue generated by displaying advertisements drawn from Yahoo’s Overture service on each page of results.
Clusty is not the first engine to delve into the idea of dynamic search result clustering. In 1996, search engine company Northern Light offered “custom search folders” for its users.
Google also employs clustering in its Google News service.