Check out Microsoft’s experimental engine, Tafiti (“to research” in Swahili, we are certainly running out of search names). You have to install Silverlight first (I covered this technology, an answer to Flash/Ajax, here and in particular here). Turns out, there’s Silverlight for the Mac (WOW!).
So this is a play to do several things. One, to show off Silverlight. Fair enough – check out the Tree View, pictured here, kinda cool. Two, to execute a cool application that helps people share search sessions. From an email I got from Microsoft:
Tafiti helps people use the Web for research that spans multiple queries and sessions by helping them visualize, store and share the result. Search is becoming increasingly specialized, across different user scenarios, vertical subject areas and entry points. What works well for simple destination searches doesn’t necessarily work as well for more sophisticated research projects.
You can drag your results, literally, to a shelf on the right and store them, share them, etc.
And finally, well, if this works, it’ll help create a database of metadata that might inform better search. It’s all very As We May Think.
Here’s the FAQ.