Google’s good, but when you search for terms like sourcing and purchasing, chances are that in addition to a few relevant hits, you’ll also get a few million, mostly irrelevant hits, in response to your query. There’s got to be a better way to find what you’re looking for, right? Most likely, and a number of companies are endeavoring to build the next Web 2.0 tool that will help you in your quest. In addition to PurchSearch, the following Web 2.0 tools are vying for your attention and hoping they will make your quest to tame the wild web just a little bit easier.
A new market intelligence offering, Filtrbox is an advanced search tool that constantly monitors online media and delivers to you the most relevant, credible mentions of the critical things you need to track.
It allows you to track multiple searches at once through a single interface, embeds constant monitoring technology that is like a real-time version of Google alerts, and maintains a history that allows you to see what the most relevant result was at any instant in time. Finally, you can create custom RSS fees that combine only the most relevant posts from all the feeds that you monitor.
Feedscrub is an intelligent RSS aggregation and content filtering tool that dynamically learns your preferences as you “save” posts you like and “scrub” posts that you don’t. It supports NetVibes, import and export via OPML, and Google Reader.
Krawler[x] is a desktop application that lets you manage your online and offline content with tags that can be used for quick search and retrieval. It also lets you share content, create communities, manage your RSS feeds, and interact with a peer-to-peer social network. It also supports version management, desktop-based collaboration, and supports multiple protocols that combine to create a seamless tool that serves as content creator, content publisher, content sharer and distributed content search engine.
In short, if you’re suffering from a content shortage despite the information overload clogging your RSS feeds and Google Searches, there are tools to help. And while they’re not perfect, despite their relative lack of value to the enterprise, Web 2.0 technologies are showing promise in the consumer world and just might make your on-line travels a little easier.