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Introducing Boom! - The Intelligent Search Assistant

Regular readers know that I always advocate efficiency, and this is definitely no exception. I give you Boom! - a much faster way to search the web.

What is Boom! you ask?

If you are like me, you are probably using Google or Yahoo as your search engine? They are both great for searching general topics, but when it comes to "special" things they are too "generic". To give you a couple of examples:

The problem is that you spend a lot of times just to search for information. It is relatively quick to visit Wikipedia, fill in the form, and search for the information you need, but wouldn't it be great if the search engine could figure it out all by itself?

This is what Boom! does. It will analyze whatever it is that you are searching for and direct you to the search engine that is most likely to give you the best result.

If you search for "books by Dan Brown", it will not search on Google but instead move you directly to Amazon. Similarly, if you search for "pancake recipes" it will move you directly to "All Recipes" or if you want to find a hotel in Boston, simply search for "locate hotels in Boston" and it will search using Google Maps.

Note: if Boom! cannot find a better alternative, it will simply use Google as you are used to.

This, in short, is what types of searches it currently supports (click on each link to see how it works):

It also supports searching on popular social networks like Facebook, MySpace and Linked-In.

And, more is coming!

You can always tell Boom! to use a specific search engine. If you search for "yahoo usability patterns", it will search Yahoo! for "usability patterns". Or if you want to search for time-lapse videos on Stage6, simply type in "stage6 timelapse".

Boom! also features natural language processing, which means that you can write "where is Vejle, Denmark" or "how do I cook spaghetti" and it will figure out what you really want.

Note: The natural language processor is "work in progress".

It gets better!

The really cool thing about Boom! is that you can install it in your browser's search bar. Just go to boom.baekdal.com and click the install button.

Installing Boom! as your default search engine is great, because then you do not even have to visit the site first. Just type in whatever you are looking for - and you will go directly to the most appropriate search result. You will never even have to see Boom!

BTW: This is probably the first time anyone has created a web application that you do not have to see :)

And here is another tip: If you using Windows, you can activate the "address bar" in the taskbar, which lets you search even when your browser is closed.

As you can probably tell, this is a very efficient way to search. You no longer have to visit different sites to search for content within them - And, there is no "middle" page. Search - and "Boom!" - you get a result (hence the name).

Try out Boom!, tell me what you think - feedback and suggestions are more than welcome!

A few technical notes

Boom! requires either Internet Explorer 7 or Firefox 2+ to work with the built in search bar. But, you can use Boom! from the web page in both Safari and Opera. Older versions of browsers are not supported (and never will).

Comments

1

Daniel Aleksandersen - Feb. 2, 2008

It would be great to customise it a little…. To make your own Boom! Your service assumes that whatever makes a boom for Thomas Beakdal also makes a boom for everyone else.

For instance, I am accustomed to phrasing my search queries to Ask!’s web search algorithm. But I am also used to doing the same thing with Yahoo!’s image search (which essentially is Flickr these days).

Maybe you could allow setting data sources by category? I would have picked Capris for book searches, and Ask! for everything else.

2

Thomas Baekdal - Feb. 2, 2008

Your service assumes that whatever makes a boom for Thomas Beakdal also makes a boom for everyone else.

Heh - well, yes and no. Boom is, of course, biased by my preferences, but I actually did try to use the most popular services, rather what I preferred personally.

For instance, I use stage6 much more frequently than any other video network - but YouTube is still the default "boom" video source.

The problem with personalizing a service like this is one of performance. If the analyzer would have to parse and understand e.g. 100,000 different "defaults" it would take a lot longer to do.

But, I have added both capris and ask to the analyzer, which mean that you can now search by writing "ask usability trends" or "chris ryan on capris" (or the short form - "capris chris ryan")

3

Thomas Baekdal - Feb. 2, 2008

Note: I have added an "update" section to the boom page. Here you can follow the changes being made to the analyzer (when new search engines are added - or definitions added to the engine).

4

Matt - Feb. 2, 2008

hey... come to look at your work from talking back and forth on Resig's blog... about absolutes...

This is pretty cool... i use safari so i cant use the toolbar... i'm sure that a bookmarklet could be written that opens a javascript prompt who's input is routed to your script then located to the results page... i would totally install that...

(bookmarklets might not let you control the look but they will provide your service option to more people... at least the niche people like me... :)

5

Thomas Baekdal - Feb. 2, 2008

Hey Matt, welcome to my site :)

There is actually a way to change the default search engine in Safari, but it is very tricky. Read this:

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20030514035516436

Note: don't blame me if it fails :)

6

Thomas Baekdal - Feb. 2, 2008

Update:

I just found Inquisitor 3, which lets you change how the search bar works in Safari. Extremely cool program!

http://www.inquisitorx.com/safari/

To install Boom! as your default search engine:

  • install Inquisitor 3
  • Go to Safari Preferences
  • Click Search
  • Edit Sites
  • Add Boom! (link = http://boom.baekdal.com/b/?)
  • Change the shortcut key to the return button (optional)

7

David - Feb. 2, 2008

Great piece of work! I downloaded it into my search bar. Maybe a travel function would be nice to add? Like if you preceded your search query with flight or travel it could take you to SideStep or Kayak or something of the sort? Travel searches would be more difficult because of the amount of information you have to input, but maybe you have some idea of how to make it work?

8

Thomas Baekdal - Feb. 2, 2008

Hey David, Thanks!

Yes, travel and flight search is definetely going to be added, but I cannot use either SideStep or Kayak as neither allow external transmission of search data (the same problem I got with iTunes at the moment).

In other news. I have added support for games (using GameSpot and XBox.com) and package tracking via UPS, USPS (United States Postal Service) and FedEx.

9

Thomas Baekdal - Feb. 2, 2008

Now also with weather forecast and logo search :)

10

Ali Servet Dönmez - Feb. 3, 2008

Hi,

I'm using Firefox 2.0.0.11 with GNU/Linux... What I'm getting is that the flash animation used in background is leaving behind all the content on the page. I had to disable all page styling to figure out this thing, otherwise all I see was just the background with no content at all!

I consider this an unfortunate bug, couldn't you use some AJAX or sth similar to get the same effect, instead of using flash; or maybe there could be a really easy fix you might apply.

I wanted to let you know about this problem, please drop an e-mail if you need further info. about the issue..

Best regards,

Ali Servet Dönmez

11

Thomas Baekdal - Feb. 3, 2008

Ali, I am suprised that Firefox has trouble rendering the page correctly on Linux, when it works on all other platforms... or maybe it is a flash-thing.

Anyway, try this instead:

http://boom.baekdal.com/?noflash=yes

12

Ivan Vega - Feb. 4, 2008

Great idea!

However, I don't see much advantage over defining search keywords in Firefox, say "bk Tom Clancy" to search Amazon books.

Or am I missing something?

13

Thomas Baekdal - Feb. 4, 2008

Nope, you are not missing anything - Except Boom! comes predefined with currently 134 x 7 word variations (and more will be added later)

14

Jonathan - Feb. 5, 2008

This is a nice idea, well done. However, I'm a little wary of the concept because it seems to be solving a problem that doesn't need solving, or if it does, the way it solves the problem creates another one.

The issue with search is finding relevant matches, not choosing where to search. For example, searching Amazon for books may seem like the right thing to do, but it requires the user to understand that Amazon only provides books that it stocks. That's fine if you intent was to buy a book, but rather less fine if you want to research an obscure work that Amazon doesn't have.

I would say that the best way of solving the problem of where to search is firstly to have people understand the repository space (eg that Amazon is good for books, Flickr for photos, etc.) and then allow them to choose these repositories easily according to their intent. The current Firefox search bar does this perfectly. The fact that the user has to think first where they want to search is actually a good thing, because in understanding the nature of the repository, the user has a better way of ensuring better results. Relying on "intelligence" to choose for them weakens their ability to get good results.

15

Thomas Baekdal - Feb. 6, 2008

Jonathan, I do agree that the target of any search system should to find relevant results. I would go as far as to say that the perfect search engine should not even give you relevant results but, relevant knowledge (instead of showing a number of "best relevant matches" just answer people's needs directly).

Boom does not do any of these things. Nor did I ever try to make Boom! better than any of the current search engines.

The thing I like about Boom! (apart from being biased since I made it) is that I can use a single search bar to target my search query to many different sites. And once you get used to searching by command it is a huge time saver.

I almost never visit any search engine directly anymore.

16

Ian Jorgensen - Mar. 6, 2008

Hi, Thomas. Great idea. I had been tkinking about the same thing a few moths ago , but never got aroung to code it :-(.

My idea was to create a verbose command line for the web, which is exactly what you've done.

Just one question are you following the the guys at humanized.com.

 

Published: Feb. 2, 2008
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Thomas Baekdal

Thomas Baekdal is a Writer, Interaction Designer, Change Advocate and Project Manager.

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