Welcome to the future of search: Answers.com

The race between Google, Yahoo and MSN for the first place in the users' searching preferences might just have an unexpected winner, somebody else than the three giants mentioned above.

We've gotten used for the middleman of our searches to always be one of the three major search engines, and that is why sometimes we tend to overlook the fact that there are also other search-innovators out there.

Besides, the stereotypical manner in which the search engines return the search results, as a list of links, each accompanied or not by several relevant keywords, does nothing else but to prepare our hunt for what we're really interested in. And then it's up to us to find the link or links that will lead us to the information we want to find.

But what if web searches could be carried out in a different manner? That's exactly the concept behind Answers.com, a hybrid between a search engine and an online encyclopedia.

I can't tell for sure what most users expect from the results returned by a search engine when typing in a keyword, but as far as I'm concerned, the most important thing is to find the most relevant information as quickly as possible. Answers.com is the best answer to this question.

The search in Answers.com looks a lot like Wikipedia, whose resources are actually used by the search engine, but it's much more than that. In order to get a clearer picture of what's happening on Answers.com, imagine that you can access from the same interface Google, Wikipedia, Encarta, Britannica, MarketWatch, Computer Desktop Encyclopedia and some other several hundred content providers.

Typing in a keyword in Answers.com won't return links, or, at least, only links, but also bits and pieces of articles, references to online resources and so on.
For example, a search for the word Apple will generate not only a page with the company's history, but also a list of keywords that can be used in order to extend the search domain in case Steve Jobs's company was not what you were looking for. For example, this is how I found out that Apple is also the name of a British psychedelic rock band and the title of an episode from Star Trek.

By means of this technology, even if the search for the most interesting link is eliminated, you're left with sufficient possibilities to search for other information as well, browsing thus becoming a very pleasant and educative experience.

Answers.com also offers a toolbar for the IE, which doesn't resemble anything we've seen so far in the field of searches and is using the technology on which GuruNet, the company owning Answers.com, has based its entire project upon.

With this toolbar, by left clicking and pressing ALT, you can receive information and the translation of any word on a Web page, any Word document or any other text displayed on your screen for that matter. You won't have to search in any other dictionary or encyclopedia, because they're already embedded in Answers.com.

But being just a young project, Answers.com also has some deficiencies, such as search inquiries that return no answer. For these the search engine redirects the user to. Another reproach that can be brought against Answers.com is that it's too dependant upon Wikipedia, a project that doesn't always contain the most accurate information. Another disadvantage is that Answers.com doesn't offer a result for whatever notion you might decide to search.

One thing is certain. Answers.com is the beginning of what Web search should really be. Try it and I'm sure that you'll develop an addiction to it in less than 10 minutes.