Legal Research

Spezify

By Simon Fodden

Yet another search engine has been launched. Spezify from Sweden is essentially a meta-search tool that presents combined results from Google, Yahoo, Twitter, and other sources in a pictorial fashion, thanks to its use of Flash technology. Results are spread across a window that is meant to be larger than your open viewing port, so that to see more results you scroll (or drag) up, down, left or right. The image slice below — the results of a search for Canada and courthouse will give you some idea; click on it to see a full window screenshot.

Clicking on any results “panel” causes the results cluster to centre on that panel, and the originating URL is provided.

Given the heavy reliance on images, it would seem that this is not the search engine for workers in the law. You will find words here, and you can tell Spezify to ignore images and videos, but the results are weak for the few searches I’ve done. Still, if you’re looking for something graphic and if you feel that unstructured results might promote your creativity, Spezify is worth a try.

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on August 06, 2009 (boomark / email).