An infinitely expanding field of boxes, each containing one thing

September 29, 2009 12:01 PM

Spezify is a metasearch engine. The interface is in Flash.
posted by ardgedee (36 comments total)

For added amusement, search for spezify in Spezify.
posted by ardgedee at 12:01 PM on September 29, 2009

This is the overwhelming search engine that those Bing commercials are referring to, right? Or is this how media-saturated teen-agers see the world?

If I had a plush Google creature, I would hug it right now.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:15 PM on September 29, 2009 [2 favorites]

Wow. I'm sure it works nicely for some things, like say a product you're looking for. But I just took the last thing I searched for on the Google, some technical help with something I was looking for. Result, large picture of a Bakugan set for sale on Amazon, a picture of a chair, and a picture of a parked car
posted by poppo at 12:19 PM on September 29, 2009

D-:
posted by adamdschneider at 12:19 PM on September 29, 2009

Wow, it's like a dynamically generated Geocities page.
posted by JaredSeth at 12:20 PM on September 29, 2009 [4 favorites]

Thanks for the link. Now when someone asks me "what's the opposite of a search engine" and I say "what do you mean" and they say "like a search engine, but get's every. single. thing. wrong." I'll know where to point them.
posted by DU at 12:21 PM on September 29, 2009 [4 favorites]

This is what happens when David Lynch takes over Google.
posted by Pastabagel at 12:37 PM on September 29, 2009

Holy mother of Christ that almost gave me a seizure.
posted by backseatpilot at 12:43 PM on September 29, 2009

Was the "Jane, stop this crazy thing!" interface deliberate?
posted by Joe Beese at 12:44 PM on September 29, 2009

Ouch that hurt my eyes. really disorganized, bad colors and the way the text box moves (shakey shakey!) when you enter text and how things fly into the results screen make it look like some pinkish gray Hello Kitty meets Blair Witch search engine.
posted by pointystick at 12:49 PM on September 29, 2009

...but get's every. single. thing. wrong.
posted by DU

Yeah. Like a grocer.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 1:02 PM on September 29, 2009 [1 favorite]

As somebody whose chief goal when meandering around the Internet is to find bizarre crap that only relates to my original point of entry in a zany, free-associating kind of way, I like it. Everything I type in seems to be a Shortcut to Weird, either in some of the specific things it spits out, or in its understanding of the terms given.

I like it. Not for any sort of serious work, but as a momentary diversion that I can still call "research" at work, it's kind of fun to see what would happen if you gave Bizarro millions of dollars in development funding and told him YOU NEVER GO MAKE NOT UNSEARCH ENGINE WHAT GIVES CRAZY RESULTS.
posted by Shepherd at 1:05 PM on September 29, 2009 [2 favorites]

Searching for metafilter provides me with:

5 photos of Jessamyn
3 screenshots of the front page
Horace Rumpole staring at a plate of beans
A video from Mefi Election Night 2004? That started playing automatically when I clicked on it, fuck you very much.
A picture of a bunny.

So... mission accomplished, I guess? I'm not sure what this means.
posted by backseatpilot at 1:18 PM on September 29, 2009

I hate websites that have unlimited dimensions. It's a violation of my internet universe when I can't reach the end of something length or width-wise.
posted by Think_Long at 1:22 PM on September 29, 2009

5 photos of Jessamyn
3 screenshots of the front page
Horace Rumpole staring at a plate of beans
A video from Mefi Election Night 2004? That started playing automatically when I clicked on it, fuck you very much.
A picture of a bunny.

No love for eamondaly with the Chicago flag? Lame.
posted by adamdschneider at 1:25 PM on September 29, 2009 [1 favorite]

Er, MeFi flag.
posted by adamdschneider at 1:25 PM on September 29, 2009 [1 favorite]

Like it. Type in the name of a composer, for example: pictures, scores, youtube performances, etc.
posted by RichardS at 1:37 PM on September 29, 2009

You know, if this used DeepZoom or some other implementation of Seadragon, this thing would be deeply cool. As it is, finding anything is really hit or miss.
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:29 PM on September 29, 2009

Why would they use horizontally scrolling content, but then code their Flash applet to treat horizontal scrollwheel mouse events as vertical wheel events, thereby breaking the ability to even browse their content as intended? Oh, I know! Because people who reimplement browsing in Flash know better than everyone else!
posted by majick at 2:55 PM on September 29, 2009 [1 favorite]

I typed in "Doctor Who" because that's how I always test things like this. It was neat.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 3:17 PM on September 29, 2009

Typing in my band's name was pretty fun as vanity searches go.
posted by lumpenprole at 3:45 PM on September 29, 2009

ELEPHANT PISSING!
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 3:56 PM on September 29, 2009

Well that was kind of a weird and unsettling experience, as searching myself gave thsi weird collage of images, some related to me, some definately not, and some recent and some from 10 years ago, like a screenshot of my desktop I posted somewhere or other in 1999.
posted by Artw at 4:23 PM on September 29, 2009

I like it. Actually, I like it a lot. I don't think it will replace Google for goal seeking searches, but for more flexible, free-form navigation and exploration, I think it is a winner. For example, I am researching new compact cameras. I typed in "Nikon d5000" and I got a large screen full of interesting content to explore. I found several reviews I hadn't known about, some nice sample images to peruse, and some twitter comments to follow up with. Similarly, entering "Olympus e-p1" found me reviews, sample images, and other related content.

I think what will really make this a winner, is using it on a touch tablet type device. Steve Jobs, I'm looking at you.
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:54 PM on September 29, 2009

I typed the first thing that came to mind, "cocksauce", and a metafilter quote comes up front and slightly-off-center.
posted by These Premises Are Alarmed at 6:35 PM on September 29, 2009

> treat horizontal scrollwheel mouse events as vertical wheel events, thereby breaking the ability to even browse their content as intended?

That's annoying.

You can use arrow keys to move the field around.
posted by ardgedee at 7:25 PM on September 29, 2009

You can also click the little "x" to get back to google.
posted by Tomorrowful at 8:19 PM on September 29, 2009 [1 favorite]

A friend of mine just tried searching (meta-searching?) Spezify for "Burning Times, in an attempt to evoke maximum geocities-ness. I'm kind of astonished that one or two of the panels it pulls up are actaully relevant to the search topic.
posted by Tomorrowful at 8:35 PM on September 29, 2009

I'm exploring this with another tab open that has a soundtrack [.wav file] I discovered via the thumping guide in the previous thread. For some reason it seems to work.
posted by carter at 9:24 PM on September 29, 2009

Internet me is much more accurate than real life me. Damn you Thomas the Tank Engine and your idiot sidekick, Sir Topham Hat!
posted by Meatbomb at 11:30 PM on September 29, 2009

My vanity search amused the hell out of me, so success cookies all 'round!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 1:27 AM on September 30, 2009

I love how it effectively creates a mood board for anything you search for. Very entertaining.
posted by DanCall at 4:40 AM on September 30, 2009

So, this is basically like the Metafilter search.

oh snap!
posted by sidereal at 1:09 PM on September 30, 2009

[snarky comment about only seeing a button with a stylized 'f' that turns in to a play button when I mouse over it when I visit the link not really deleted]
posted by Fezboy! at 1:20 PM on September 30, 2009

So I had to search for myself, too. Some really bizarre images, but at least it found my youtube videos?
posted by owtytrof at 2:23 PM on September 30, 2009

A friend of mine just tried searching (meta-searching?) Spezify for "Burning Times, in an attempt to evoke maximum geocities-ness.

You know, I wasn't looking for that particular style of art that I've come to mentally categorize as "neo-pagan", but there it was.
posted by Pope Guilty at 4:40 AM on October 1, 2009