Rowdii.com - An Easy To Use Search Engine with Social Commentary
Rowdii.com is a new search engine with social commentary and linking capabilities. By creating an account, users can comment and discuss the result with other users, as well as link sites together.
While the social commentary on search results is nothing new (See our review of Scour.com), the site does present some interesting features and a new take on search results. I’ll walk you through a few of my findings below of this very clean little search engine.
Clean!
One of the first things I noticed about this site is the User Interface. It’s probably one of the best examples of the C.R.A.P. principle of design; Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, and Proximity first introduced by Robin Williams. All the pages in this site from the search results to the About Us page have a very fresh and easy to read design and make this one of the designed site’s I’ve reviewed so far (IMHO).
The Search Results
The actual search results seem to be decent enough. All the subjects I’ve looked for have come up, but obviously not in the same order as they would with Google or Yahoo!.
One key feature I’d like to point out about the search results is how it handles URL’s… meaning, when someone types in a URL into the search box. Rowdii will recognize that you have indeed typed in a URL into your search query and bring you directly to that page. That might not seem like a big deal, but considering how a lot of people use a search engine, it’s an interesting addition.
From the Peanut Gallery
To start off, I do have to contest the claim that Rowdii makes about being the first web site to offer social commentary to their search results:
“Rowdii is the world’s first search engine with a social media component. The service allows you to place comments next to any website.“
After all, if you’ve been reading this blog, you’ll notice that we do have a few search engines that have been around for a while that to the same thing. (sorry guys)
The discussion forum feature does provide an interesting way for users to see what a site may be about, but obviously it would only work if you have a large audience, so it will be interesting to see if the site gains enough traction for this function to become effective.
Linking
The linking function is an interesting feature and provides users to link similar pages together. Google and other search engines have done this as well, however, it’s never reliable. Putting it in the users hands will hopefully provide a better capabilitiy, but then again… it goes back to the audience size question.
Conclusion
Rowdii.com is an interesting and very clean search engine with a lot of very easy to use and intuitive features. If you’re looking for a little social in your search, give it a try and add it to your search bar.
September 18th, 2008 at 6:01 am
Rowdii is great. I’ve been using the linking facility to connect my site to similar websites and I’m already getting good traffic from it. It’s like than Google Adwords - but better because it’s free.