Find real-time results with Collecta

Friday June 19, 2009

The real-time search trend just keeps going, with the newest member, Collecta, definitely showing up as one of the best I've seen so far. Collecta scours the Web for results that have happened, uh, pretty much NOW for your search query, and brings back a variety of results: blog posts, articles, comments, microblogging updates, photos, etc.

Try a search on Collecta, say, "camping", and you'll get results that look like these:

Collecta gives you results in a three column format; search filters on the far left, results right in the middle, and paused results that you choose yourself in the far right. Since the real-time Web does tend to move quickly, this "pause" feature is especially useful, as the results can start whizzing by depending on the popularity of your topic.

You can use the search filters to determine where you want your results to come from (blogs? photos? comments? all of the above?), as well as the "Older Results" button in the middle pane to see stuff that might've popped up in the last half hour or so. Collecta is fast, easy to use, and delivers pretty good results. A few things I'd like to see: pop-out windows to watch trending topics without having to be on Collecta's home page, RSS feeds, a way to easily group topics so you can watch more than one at a time, and more search filters. Definitely worth a look!

More real-time search tools