Search Results in 2009

It's 2009, and our search results still look like this:

Cuil tried to serve up search results more suited to the way Digital Natives process information: splashed all across the page, all media forms at once.  But one major problem I had with Cuil was that it was overwhelming, a huge smorgasbord of information shoved in front of us:

Then in June came Kosmix's redesign to horizontal search.  Similar to Cuil, Kosmix draws listings from sites across the web, not necessarily those with the best SEO.  But Kosmix's killer edge is how it categorizes the information into quick overviews, Wikipedia entries, audio, video, blogs, opinion/discussion, news...basically everything Google makes you travel to a separate page to find.  After trying a few searches, I was in love:

Another great Kosmix feature is how it integrates shopping and product reviews.  Showing the actual product for sale makes much more sense than relying on the text "Shop ____ at Amazon.com!" over on Googs:

I'm not as familiar with Yahoo Glue, but it seems to be a similar concept:

I think Glue will probably appeal to Yahoo's current user base, but for me, Yahoo is back with AOL in the land of dial-up.  I'm sticking with the cool new kid in town.

None of the new sites rival Google when searching more obscure terms, but for gaining a broader understanding of people and issues, Kosmix is definitely where I plan to head in 2009.  Of course, old habits die hard.  I'll keep you posted on how many of my searches actually take place on an alternative search site, rather than in the search bar of my Chrome browser.  Stay tuned!