Icerocket – searching blogs and other media

On Phil Bradley’s  blog I saw a post about Icerocket, a search engine with a few differences.

 The search tab options are the first difference.

1.  When you visit the site the search tab option is by default set to ‘Blogs’ rather than ‘Web’, which is the second tab. As web users are increasingly looking for news, sharing ideas, views, etc., the development of the whole social media area, this makes more and more sense.
2. They also have added a ‘Twitter‘ search option as a tab. Is this the first search engine that has done that? I’m not sure that I would use this option a lot at school but for breaking news, it would be interesting.
3. MySpace and News and images round out the tabs.
4. You can subscribe to an RSS option for searches, which is also a strength for the search engine.  

I thought that I would give it a try. I was interested to see what was picked up in a search about the Public Transport in Melbourne, especially after the problems of the last few days. It is a controversial topic at the moment.

You have the option of simple or adv. search, which offers phrase searching, domain searches, etc.

Big buzz

The search engine also has a tool that they have named ‘The Big Buzz’. This is the part I found the most interesting.  If you use this tab and run a search Icerocket returns recent (less than 1 hour) results that it plucks from all the search options (weblogs, Twitter, Video, News, and Images). All results are arranged chronologically, with options for an auto refresh of 1, 3 or 5 minutes and, of course, an RSS option.

I like the way you get a good overview of what is being written about your topic. The rss is also a great boon for keeping up-to-date with what is happening. For students who have to develop ideas/folios/media files on particular topics this would be of great value. 

Trends

There is also a trends option in the left-hand column. I like looking at statistics and numbers so I always like these options.

Although it is not the one of the more visual search engines, that I favour, I can see potential in what it offers. I will be using it on other topics when I need some guidance/help with tools, ideas, etc. that may be of use in the education field.  You have the option to download the Icerocket tool bar, follow blog trends, have a blog tracker, etc as well from the homepage. Well worth having a look and doing some searching using this tool. I like the way you get a good overview of what is being written about your topic. The rss is also a great boon for keeping up-to-date with what is happening. For students who have to develop ideas/folios/media files on particular topics this would be of great value. 

 If I was in government or working for Connex, I would certainly be watching this.