All of a sudden, visual search previews are the hot feature of the week. On Monday, RockMelt unveiled its new browser in private beta. One of its main features is how it handles search from the browser search box. When you type in a search, results are displayed in a column overlay with each underlying page preloaded so that it appears in the main browser window when you click on each result.
Today, Google responded with its own official launch of Google Instant previews, which it has been testing for months. Maybe the timing is just coincidental (yeah, right). But Google rolling out search previews takes it from a quirky feature of a browser most people can’t even download yet to a mainstream search experience. You can check out Google’s instant preview feature here until it rolls out everywhere.
But who does it better? Google’s previews seem to load faster, at least for me (and I am on a very fast broadband connection). But squinting at an image of a site where you can barely even read the words doesn’t really help me out. The RockMelt method actually loads the site. Maybe calling it a preview is not technically accurate, since you actually navigate to the site, but it is so fast that it feels more like a preview. You can see the difference in the screencast above. Or check out the screenshots below for how each preview looks for the same search result on Rockmelt and Google.
Which method do you prefer?
Rockmelt is a social web browser built off of Chromium and boasts deep integration with both Facebook and Twitter with its “Edges” which are filled with friends that are online and feeds that you follow complete with update badges. It also sports what some believe to be the next big search revolution. Unlike Google’s universal navigation field, RockMelt has a dedicated search field that shows complete search results as a drop down overtop web pages. This is helpful when switching...
Google provides search and advertising services, which together aim to organize and monetize the world’s information. In addition to its dominant search engine, it offers a plethora of online tools and platforms including: Gmail, Maps, YouTube, and Google+, the company’s extension into the social space. Most of its Web-based products are free, funded by Google’s highly integrated online advertising platforms AdWords and AdSense. Google promotes the idea that advertising should be highly targeted and relevant to users thus providing...
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