I have a challenge for you today, my dear patient readers.
Try out Sputtr.com, a relatively new startup in search, that allows you to search almost everything in almost every search engine.
Yeah, but, how?
I first met this gem when I was writing a review for it for my PC Magazine Web 2.0 columns. I swear that it left me feeling as a stupid user for far too long… The problem is, how am I supposed to search in another search engine apart from the default one? (namely, Google)
I tried everything. From dragging and dropping the search engine icons to the placeholder (well, it looks like a placeholder to me) on the right, from trying to trick the site by clicking quickly on the search form after clicking on one of the search engine icons.
Turns out, that’s not it: the icons below are supposed to be a submit button, meaning that you first have to enter your search criteria in the form above and then ignore the fat Google button on the right, just to click on another of the options below. Sounds intuitive when someone explains it to you eh? Yeah.
Excuse me, but I didn’t get the whole point in it. I may sound stupid, but I really didn’t. When i first met this service, it even had a mini-tutorial above the search form that actually guided the users in how to use it.
Really: why would a search engine require a friggin’ tutorial to use? Really.
