I spent most of my teenage years on stage as a singer. But some of the best times were the rehearsals when we were, as the song says, “singing Doo-Wops to the wall” – or the hall, the bathroom, the stairwell… We were always searching for the best possible sound.

More recently my searching has been restricted to the Internet, and I thought I was doing fine, mostly with Google although I did try Cuil for a while. But Internet search is changing (or about to change) with the introduction of new tools like Microsoft Bing, Google Squared, and Wolfram Alpha.

: On June 3rd Microsoft officially introduced what it calls a “decision engine” which they claim will get you refined results fast. Some reviews are glowing and some not so much. I will be switching to Bing for a while to give it a fair shake.

One thing I like right away is searching for videos. Try selecting videos, and then search for, say, ePortfolios. The result is a matrix of thumbnails that you can mouse over to hear excerpts – Cool!

Read / View information about Bing:

• Microsoft’s Bing Search Engine Goes Live
• A PCMag full review
• Say Hello to BING-411, Bing’s Voice Service (like GOOG-411)
• And not to be missed, the beginning of Microsoft’s video ad campaign
  Bing Rescues World From Google Ruin

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In May, Google offered some new search tools: Google Search Options, Google Squared, Rich Snippets

: Speaking of a matrix, when you search here your results are presented in a table on the screen with related terms down the left-hand column and categories across the top. Google Squared attempts to turn unstructured Web information into a structured database of sorts. How successfully it does this remains to be seen. One thing I noticed is that it seems to work better for multi-term searches than single words.

Squared also lets you add or delete results to produce the most useful “square” of information which you can then save to your Google account and refer back to later. This has possibilities!

Read / View information about Google Squared:

• Article: Google Squared Launched in Labs

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Mathematica founder Stephen Wolfram has launched Wolfram Alpha, a search engine that aims to more thoroughly answer Web users’ questions rather than just serve up existing data. This is a “project to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable by anyone.”

Read / View information about Wolfram Alpha:

• Article: Mathematica Founder Gives Wolfram Alpha Preview
• video: A Sneak Preview of Wolfram|Alpha: Computational Knowledge Engine
   

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I may not find any echoes on the Internet, but all this makes the looking fun-again!

What are your favorite Search Tools?