Picture this: You’re fiddling around somewhere on the internet, maybe…maybe it’s even here! On AltSearchEngines, as you’re fiddling now (or as we like to call it, doing some serious scholarly research on alternative search engines to help ensure the health of alternative search for future generations). As you’re insuring this health, you come across something very interesting, something you don’t know much about, like, say, a MagicJack. Interest in that word sparks a neuron somewhere in the recesses of your cerebrum to fire, igniting an unstoppable chain of neural excitement. Suddenly, you realize that this MagicJack is a widget you’ve heard about somewhere that connects your phone to a USB port, comes with a number, and allows unlimited calling to US numbers for $20 a year, anywhere in the world where there’s an internet connection. How interesting. Immediately, you want to learn more.

You can do one of two things. The first is, type in the term “MagicJack” in that little plugin on your toolbar, which will force another tab to open, which will totally knock you out of the context of what you’re reading on ASE and force you to look at an entirely new page of content. Go ahead. Try to do this. You’ll be unwillingly pulled away from this article into a new tab or even worse, the whole page will be overwritten by the new site. It’ll be horrible. You’ll look for comfort with your family, who probably won’t understand what you’re so upset about, and you’ll be frustrated for lack of empathy.

Or, you can get a little pop-up information bubble on the page itself, telling you what a MagicJack is, without you having to go anywhere, open any new tabs, or type in anything. That way you can keep reading this article, be informed, and not bother your family.

If this second scenario sounds impossible, that’s because you’re not thinking big enough. This month, we have reported three separate services that do just this. In order, they are KallOut, headup, and Mashlogic. We will now proceed to go into detail and break down these services for you. In reverse order…

Mashlogic

Mashlogic—easy to use, automated, not overwhelming. Mashlogic is a Firefox plugin. Go to their website, install the plugin, and even get free updates. (I just got one myself.) You’ll have new button on your Firefox toolbar which will allow you to check what features you want. You will then only get those features. Once you have chosen what you want, mashlogic will put little dotted lines under potentially interesting words, phrases, names, numbers, values, whatever. All you have to do us hover your mouse over then and a bubble pops up with all kinds of goodies. The features? I’ll show you the exact dropdown menu.

And here’s an example of what Mashlogic can do.

As you can see here, I was reading an article that had John McCain’s name in it. Mashlogic will put a small dotted line under his name, and then give you information about him. A Wikipedia article is just for starters. They’ve got the latest polls, headlines and articles about him, and if you’re worried about information overload, just switch off some options you don’t want. As I was informed in a comment in our previous Mashlogic post, the currency converter, once toggled, will convert any amount you see on a webpage to your desired currency in the same way.

Since Mashlogic will only highlight certain selected terms, you might think there is a disadvantage, namely, what if you’re interested in something that isn’t highlighted? Is your entire future gone? No, your future is still there, because you can highlight any term you want, right click, and choose the Mashing feature. I must admit, though I have seen this feature on the menu after a right click, I haven’t gotten it to actually work. I assume this is my own fault, or computer’s, which is actually missing several parts, though I feel I must put that in.
While speaking with Ranjit Padmanabhan we agreed that these applications like Mashlogic have the potential to pull traffic away from search engines and even the playing field. This can help achieve what Charles Knight, editor of this blog, has deemed the goal of ASE – marketshare. Perhaps we are one step closer.
A little more stuff Mashlogic can do for you: If you slide your cursor over a company name, it’ll give you stock values (though given the times I’m not sure you’ll want to see them) and it’ll also give you job opportunities hosted by SimplyHired. A media streamer for song titles, and even a feature called “Baseball Players.” I’ve been out of America too long to understand why this is important. But I used to know. Go PhillRays.
If you want to check this thing out, here’s an invite

There is one disadvantage to Mashlogic, which I should also mention. Sometimes you get information windows by accident when your mouse hovers over a dotted line for too long. That can get annoying. Peraps Ranjit will develop something to limit this, like extend the time delay by a second or two. Just a thought.

headup

headup, by SemantiNet is part of my specialty – Israeli search startups. This one is also a firefox plugin. Co-founder Tal Keinan told me the whole history of its development, and this thing is a big one. So much so, in fact, that I was a bit overwhelmed by its scope. It might actually search for, and find, TOO much of what you want, but than again, I’m probably just a wimp. Here’s a quick example. Search for a CD on Amazon, and headup, if you want it to, will tell you this:

How many of your Facebook® friends like this band;

Hear the band’s latest music streamed via Pandora™

See band pictures on Flickr®;

Find the best tickets for the concert in your city via Zvents™;

How many of your friends are using Twitter™ or Friendfeed™ to discuss the upcoming concert;

What restaurants near the concert hall are top-rated by Yelp®;

Use cutting-edge geolocation through Yahoo® and its Fire Eagle technology for accurate ‘where am I’ capabilities;

Mashlogic will underline interesting text, but headup will put a little plus sign next to it. Unlike Mashlogic, which is more focused on general information, headup is more socially focused, as you can see from the list above. This is advantageous for those who are socially internetually oriented.

For a full scope of headup, watch this.

headup’s biggest advantage is that it gets smarter the more you upload into it. What you’re doing with headup is telling it who you are by uploading yourself, like your facebook profile, into it, and the more you give it, the more your headup will match you. Worried about people spying on you? I asked Tal this question, and the answer’s at the end of the video, but if you missed it, there is no Big Brother watching you here. It’s just your hard drive working locally with the plugin.

KallOut

This one is my personal favorite. I love this one. KallOut is a very real example of punctuated equilibrium when it comes to evolution in the search world.

What you see here is a Wikipedia article about the International Monetary Fund, which until the credit crisis got really bad a few weeks ago, I never knew existed. So I wanted to find out what the International Monetary Fund was, and I just highlighted the term, hovered my cursor over the KallOut button, and clicked on the Wikepedia option. It opened the article in a floating information box. No going to Wikipedia, no going to Google to type in the word to end up at the Wikipedia article anyway, no opening a new tab. I can browse through the article, keep my place in my browser, and not disturb my precious homeostatic search equilibrium.

So how is this different from Mashlogic? In two ways, primarily. One, it works with highlighting only. The advantage being you don’t have any unwanted information bubbles if you accidentally hover over a highlighted area for too long, and two, you can pick what kind of information you want. Mashlogic is better when it comes to an overall view of a topic, because KallOut won’t give you presidential polls or currency conversion unless you ask for it or happen to find it in a search you do in the KallOut bubble. Mashlogic is geared to specific information with general search also, but KallOut’s forte is general search.

Here’s the video. It’s got good music.

Speaking of Wikipedia, did I mention you can do this with YouTube as well, and search an watch videos on whatever you highlight without going to YouTube or watching in a different window? Well, I’m mentioning it now. Consider it mentioned.

OK, you get the point, KallOut is good when it comes to the big boys, but what about those cute little alts we report about here daily? Do those fit into KallOut? Yes, yes they do. Here’s how to add them.

1. Highlight a term

2. Kall it Out.

3. Click “KallOut Options”

4. Add a new one

5. Go to the alt’s homepage, and type in TEST TEST in the search box

6. Paste the resulting URL into KallOut

7. You’re good to go

Here’s even more, and this is over the top. KallOut is specifically tailored to MS Office applications, so you can search in Powerpoint presentations, Outlook, Word, Excel, and even PDF’s. That’s one area that neither Mashlogic nor headup have breached, as far as I know. I hope I’m not misreporting that, because all three of these guys are awesome.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 27th, 2008 at 2:00 pm and is filed under Innovations, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.