ambiently: like a search engine, but cooler.

It's finally here: the first discovery engine.  Unlike a normal search engine that just directs you to websites based on search terms that you type in, ambiently provides a list of websites related to the site you are currently viewing.

Ambiently is a "startup company developing web discovery engine applications" with headquarters in Houston, Texas.

This application is really easy to use. You don't need to sign up or install anything.  Just go to the site's homepage and drag the toggle button that says "ambiently" to your toolbar. That's it. Then you should have a tab every time you open your browser that says "Ambient Page."

This is a great tool for research, whether you are doing it for school/job or just personal interest.  Say you find a website that has some insightful information on the topic of interest, but you want to see what additional insight you can get from other sites.  Instead of going back to your Google search results, just click on the "ambient page" tab on your toolbar.  On the top of the page, you'll see a small summary of the page you were viewing.  Next to it is a "tweet this" link, for those of you who twitter.  Underneath is a list of "ambient links," or links to related sites, along with a little blurb that gives you an idea of what is on the site (much like Google search results).  I tried out this process myself, starting from yogictrance and clicking on the ambiently tab.   It brought up a a list of sites and blogs dedicated to yoga, including a website about Savasana (a type of yoga), an article about using yoga to reduce stress and improve health, and a blog on yoga and meditation articles.

Ambiently is a new kind of search engine. In some ways, it is better than the old kind of search engine.  Obviously, you can't use ambiently until you have a starting point.  So in most cases it will be necessary to use Google or Yahoo or whatever you prefer to find one website on whatever topic you wish to learn more about.  Once you have found this site, it is much simpler to use ambiently to find similar sites than to go back to the search engine and devise a query or search term.  Sometimes, it is really hard to think of the right search words that will yield the best results:

One of the biggest problems with today’s search is that we often know roughly what we want, but cannot easily get the right query. Sometimes, our need is broader than a simple query can describe. With Ambiently, there is no such need. You get relevant web information by one click.

This is useful for any discipline.  I found it particularly useful  for researching topics related to meditation and yoga.  If you come across an article that relates to whatever you are studying, then a search engine that brings up sites relevant to that article would be the most effective way to keep researching that topic.

Ambiently is a great research tool. It's a search engine, but better ... maybe not in every way, but it's still pretty useful. I'm definitely going to use it.