14 DAY TRIAL // The latest trend on the Internet has been real-time information with the best example being Twitter. And it's not just a fad as the biggest players, including Google, recognize the importance of instant information. But, while Twitter may be a great tool for spreading the information, the growing amount of data being pushed calls for a better way to filter and search it. CrowdEye, a new site created by ex-Microsoft search head Ken Moss aims to do just that.
“The internet has been evolving for years into a place where information flows quicker and quicker. Now it is becoming increasingly possible to tap into that stream of bits and bytes and use it to draw conclusions and make informed decisions based on the 'wisdom of the crowds', “ reads the announcement on the newly launched CrowdEye site. “CrowdEye is a new generation of search engine which looks at the worldwide web in a new way. By tracking discussions on Twitter, we can help our users find out what’s important to them right now in real time.”
Of course, the market for real-time search is hardly empty, with the likes of recently launched Topsy, OneRiot and, naturally, Twitter's own search engine. CrowdEye starts with a disadvantage as its results are not real-time in the same sense that Twitter Search's are. The search engine indexes a large portion of the Tweets but not all, as it doesn't have access to the internal stream like Twitter.
However, CrowdEye does come with a number of features to make up for the disadvantage offering a much better overview of the topic searched. In addition to the tweets relating to the query, CrowdEye also displays a graph of the number of tweets using the keywords as well as a tag cloud of related searches, hashtags or common words. If these and other features will be enough for the search engine to stand out from the crowd remains to be seen but it is starting off with good base.