Grokker - Another info search/visualisation tool
Created by Catherine Howell (University of Cambridge) on May 13, 2005
Visual tools are multiplying like googlehacks.
Try Grokker, a new service by Groxis, Inc. -- the people who built the original Groxis client software (re-named "Grokker", all still available in EDU, myGrokker, and enterprise flavours).
Grokker creates a visual map of your Yahoo! search: a kaleidoscope / mish-mash of circles and squares (aaargh: who picked those colours!?). At first glance, it's all a bit confusing. The company website provides a clue to the mentality that produced this delight:
While "Stranger in a Strange Land" by Robert A. Heinlein is not exactly required reading here at Grokker, we do take inspiration from the 1961 science-fiction classic.
No kidding...
To date, Grokker has received mixed reviews, but I think it's still worth a go. It isn't the first info visualisation tool (the SearchEngineWatch blog has a good list of visual tools), and it isn't the fastest (possibly due to the Java base? -- Java programmers, please don't hate me), but it has some neat features. The most important of these (as important, to me, as the search filters tool) is that it uses metadata to organise search results by category, and lets you email/save your Grokker maps.
Grokker creates a visual map of your Yahoo! search: a kaleidoscope / mish-mash of circles and squares (aaargh: who picked those colours!?). At first glance, it's all a bit confusing. The company website provides a clue to the mentality that produced this delight:
While "Stranger in a Strange Land" by Robert A. Heinlein is not exactly required reading here at Grokker, we do take inspiration from the 1961 science-fiction classic.
No kidding...
To date, Grokker has received mixed reviews, but I think it's still worth a go. It isn't the first info visualisation tool (the SearchEngineWatch blog has a good list of visual tools), and it isn't the fastest (possibly due to the Java base? -- Java programmers, please don't hate me), but it has some neat features. The most important of these (as important, to me, as the search filters tool) is that it uses metadata to organise search results by category, and lets you email/save your Grokker maps.
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