BATTELLE'S REVIEW OF SNAP AND HOW IT'S RETHINKING SEARCH

John Battelle's review of Snap:

As I've pointed out many times, Bill Gross, the man behind Snap (and Goto/Overture and about 25 other search related companies) is not one to take lightly. When Snap launched, I watched closely, and while many of its features were admirable (the transparency, for one, and later, the CPA model, for another), it never quite got enough lift under its wings, at least in its first year.

Today Snap is relaunching as a "broadband search engine." That means, it's heavy on Ajax features, clustering, and related results, among other things. It certainly is a new look. The results include large thumbnails of prospective pages, for example, and a suggested terms autocomplete feature (not unlike Google Suggest). In fact, there are tons of features that have been tried in various other places, but never have so many been implemented in one place at one time. It's an attempt to fight one's way out of the single search box interface, and whether it works or not, it's worth a look. The theory is sound - which is usually the case with Gross's companies - but often he's ahead of the market. (full post)