Written by Alex Iskold and edited by Richard MacManus.
During DEMOfall 06, we wrote about about
the Retrevo vertical search engine for electronics.
Retrevo is one of the more advanced vertical search engines, because it uses
sophisticated mining and crawling technologies. In terms of UI, their aim is to blur the
boundaries between a search engine and a portal. Instead of just giving you a list of
search results, Retrevo creates the feel of a specialized application which has a
semantic understanding of the electronics space.
Retrevo is a vertical search engine, so initially what you get is a search box. You
can search for anything electronics related, for example Sony Digital Camera.
The result is a portal-style page like this:
Retrevo results page
Instead of a single results list that you would get from a traditional search engine
like Google, Retrevo automatically groups the results into major categories: Most
Popular Results, Manufacturer Info, Reviews and Articles, Forums and Blogs, Daily
Deals, and Stores. These groupings are both intelligent and useful,
regardless of what you are trying to do. In addition, Retrevo provides a handy preview
pane that allows you to see each result without navigating to its page.
Closer look at how the results are organized
If you are shopping for an electronics item, you will find the Reviews and
Articles section helpful. This section brings together gadget reviews from
places like CNET. If you already own the item, then use the Manufacturer Info
section to get access to product manuals. Retrevo told us they have a special crawler
focused on enabling just this feature.
Another handy section is Forums and Blogs. You probably will visit it once
you need to troubleshoot something – i.e. read up on what other people did when they had
the same issues.
In addition to these features, Retrevo recently launched the Daily Deals tab.
You can find electronics deals a dime a dozen these days. But the one that comes with
Retrevo seems different, because it is context sensitive and fresh. In general, deals are
annoying because they blink in your face with things you are not interested in. But if
you are shopping for Sony Digital Camera and there is a good deal for that
particular brand and item type available, it makes sense to check it out.
Daily deals
Summary
Relevancy, semantics and presentation are the things that make Retrevo compelling.
Could you do the same (re)search for Sony Digital Camera on Google? Absolutely.
But it will take you much longer and you are not going to enjoy the experience. Retrevo
proves the case for vertical search in a simple and effective way.
We anticipate that more vertical search engines will excel in relevancy, semantics and
presentation in the coming year. But tell us if you agree – take a look at Retrevo
and give us your feedback. Also, what vertical search engines (if any) do you use currently?
