I’m always suspicious when a company claims to have made its product or service available for mobiles. Is the new version different than the regular offering? And is it something I’d even want to access from my cell phone? In regards to Clusty Mobile, a search site, the answer to that first question is “yes.”
The answer to the second question is “no,” but that could just be me – as I’ve said before, I tend to use my cell phone as a paperweight instead of a communication device, and I almost never explore anything other than those two options. That’s not Clusty Mobile’s fault.
Clusty Mobile is a moderately thorough reworking of Clusty.com. “Nobody wants to wade through thousands of links to access Web information via their mobile devices,” admits Raul Valdes-Perez, the CEO of Vivisimo (which runs Clusty), in a statement. “We’ve combined the reliability of Clusty’s search capabilities with navigation appropriate for mobile users and given them the ability to find exactly what they’re looking for right at their fingertips.”
Judge for yourself. Clusty.com search results for the term “dog” begin with a stock quote, then move on to Wikipedia, the Dog Breed Information Center, and the Association of Pet Dog Trainers. Clusty Mobile turns up the same stock quote, and then gives a one-sentence review of the movie “Firehouse Dog,” which is apparently “ruined with endless fart and poop jokes, and an overlong run time.”
To be fair, however, “dog” might not be a common search term for mobile users. And Clusty Mobile offers up alternative phrases that Clusty.com does not (“dog breeds,” “dog show,” etc.) in an effort save users from those annoying small keypads.
Clusty Mobile doesn’t make me want to yank out my phone and start searching away, but for those of you who already do this sort of thing, it may be worth a look.
