Quintura, the “see and find” search engine, went live this morning with a new user interface. Initial reactions were mixed: some people were impressed by it, while others found it a bit messy. Aesthetics may become less of a focus, however, after it was pointed out that Quintura’s search results are little more than a repackaged version of Yahoo’s offerings.
This doesn’t qualify as a big, bad secret – Quintura’s results pages feature the disclaimer “Powered by Yahoo XML” and a link to Yahoo itself – but it is a bit of a letdown that the site depends so heavily on another company. Quintura’s most unique feature, then, is its brand new interface.
Here’s where that “see and find” bit comes in; results don’t appear in nice, neat lists. Instead, they sort of float against a white background, and if you idle your mouse cursor over a word or phrase, a few more results will appear. The obsessive-compulsive in me doesn’t love this style of presentation (which the company has dubbed “the Quintura Cloud”), but it does have its uses.
TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington noted one of them. “Like Clusty, I find Quintura to be useful for research or browsing based search where I am trying to find more information on a given topic,” he wrote. Arrington’s even become a repeat user, adding, “After testing it, I find that I’ve been back a few times . . . .”
It remains to be seen how many followers the new user interface can win, however. Quintura’s dependence on Yahoo is something of a mark against it, and the company’s “About Us” section isn’t likely to impress anyone with its outdated information and slightly desperate plea.
“Quintura, which will launch community-powered online search engine services in early 2006, looks for significant venture capital funding,” it proclaims.
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