Current real-time search engines generally focus on just searching a single service – and typically, that service is Twitter. Scoopler, however, a Y Combinater-funded startup which launched today after a short private beta, goes far beyond that. Scoopler is a real-time meta-search tool for Twitter, Flickr, Digg, and Delicious, with support for more services to follow in the future. As one would expect, search results from Twitter dominate the real-time stream, though, depending on the topic, the most interesting links often come from delicious or digg.
Like most of its competitors, Scoopler splits its screen between a stream of real-time results and a list of popular links, videos, and images. As the real-time stream tends to feature a lot of content from Twitter, the ‘popular images’ section is where you will find most of the content from Flickr. Though, it would be nice if you could filter the real-time stream by service.
Scoopler also has some interesting features beyond its search functions. When you hover over a link, for example, you can ‘peek’ at the results without leaving the site, for example, and you can easily share any link right from the results page as well.
Real-time search is clearly where a lot of the action is right now. We have seen specialized services that just search forum posts, for example, and more comprehensive search engines that include real-time features like Yauba. With Twazzup, Tweetmi, Tweetmeme, DailyRt, OneRiot, and many others, the Twitter real-time search market is almost starting to feel over-saturated already.
We’ll have to wait and see if Scoopler can come up with enough additional functions to set itself apart from its competition. As it stands today, it is already an interesting competitor in this market, and one of the few real-time meta-search engines that are currently available (though we have heard from a number of other companies that are working on similar products).
