Younanimous is a fresh service which can best be described as a customizable meta-search engine. It’s basic interface is a standard search form, and it retrieves results from three major search engines: Google, Yahoo!, and MSN.
What makes it different from hundreds of other search engines is how it ranks the results, and its customization options (which, for the most part, aren’t yet implemented and exist just as a promise on the official Younanimous blog).
Younanimous has its own algorithm for ranking the results, but it also takes into account the user’s interaction. For example, if you click on a result, it might go up next time you search for the same query. An option to manually vote for the results is also planned, but has not yet been implemented.
Besides the search results themselves, Younanimous offers some additional information - a couple of ‘related’ results, Alexa ranking, cache, Google PageRank, and social bookmarking buttons for easy submission to Digg, del.icio.us, Furl and Reddit. As it stands now, all this is nice but not extraordinary; however, this may change if Younanimous adds the promised customization options, which would enable users to set their own set of preferences for ranking of the results and information they see. For example, you should be able to have your results ranked according to their Google PageRank, or Alexa rating. Or you could choose not to see this information at all. For more ‘coming up’ results, check the following list (taken from Younanimous blog)
“Video Search.
Settings page where you can add and remove widgets from showing up.
Blacklisting, and manually voting ala red and green buttons.
Compete.com Graphs.
Stumbleupon.com Graphs.
Public API for building your own widgets.
Opera browser fixes. ….Damn you opera
Site preview ala snap.com thingy. Hover over to see what I mean
Some code overhaul to increase speed.
Advertising program similar to adwords where people can bid on keywords.
New loading images, which actually say whats going on.”
Does all this sound too good to be true? Well, Younanimous is just a couple of days old, so we’ll give them the benefit of a doubt.
As one of the guys working on Younanimous, I want to say thanks for the mention.
We’re working very hard to implement all features that you mentioned, and a whole lot more. As I’m only the designer, I can’t actually give an eta on when new features will be added. Just know that they’ll be coming as quick as possible, and excellent feedback like this really motivates the team. Thanks.
@Trite: thanks for stopping by. Make sure to notify me of any major changes to the service.
Hey Stan,
We have done quite a few updates, so come on by and check out the new younanimous.
We loved your review and put it on your press page, I hope that is ok.
Anyways, Let me know if you want to ask any questions for a ‘exclusive’ with Younanimous. We have great things coming.
Cheers!