The other day, I was rushing out the door when I remembered a story about a dolphin that received a prosthetic fluke. I typed Bionic Dolphin in the Searchme search box and there it was, on the fourth result. I didn’t have to click on numerous links, open a single page or read the article to find my dolphin. The picture of the dolphin was right there on the news page. Since I was running late, I “stacked” the page in the To Read stack and left.

When I got to the office, I searched the other engines and couldn’t find my bionic dolphin as easily or as fast. To get what I wanted, I had to type longer phrases such as dolphin receives prosthetic tail and its variations, open several links and read a few paragraphs.

It’s fun to experiment while searching. As experienced Web navigators, we learn a few tricks on how to find what we are looking for quickly and also how to avoid all the spam and other useless links. At work, I like to put myself on the keyboard of a novice Web user. It’s like detective work – What’s the reasoning behind each search? What would a 10 year old type? How to use the search box in an economic way, saving keystrokes and time? Our visual search allows me to do all that without wasting time.

What is your creative way of searching the Web?

A couple of weeks ago, before we launched our stacks feature to the public, we were all making stacks like crazy in hopes of cashing in on the free lunch John Holland offered us if one of our stacks made it into the Stacks Gallery.

One of the stacks I made focused on Big Sur, the famously beautiful coastal town close to where I grew up. Unfortunately, in the last week the wildfires here in California have burned about 100,000 acres of land in and around the Big Sur wilderness and are still burning.

Some of the pages in my stack have turned out to be good resources for updates on the fire – the Nepenthe site has a webcam that has captured flames and smoke in the mountains and the Henry Miller Library site was updated to announce that firefighters saved the library on Wednesday. Flip through the stack below to see some gorgeous pictures and read about Big Sur’s history.

Erin made me the best stack ever the other day. I knew I liked Stacks, but I had no idea how much.

So I’m dressing my sandwich at the buffet line when I hear a loud “EEEWWW, YOU PUT MAYO ON YOUR HOT DOGS??” echo from behind. It’s Mike H. publicly mocking me as he spoons organic mustard onto his plate. Now I know how he stays so trim.

“It’s not a hotdog, it’s a sausage,” I snap back.

“Still it’s wrong, and I’m Polish,” Pawel chimes in.

“This is not a polish sausage; it’s chicken apple, so it’s OK,” I defend myself.

“Did you know the Polish were part of the California gold rush,?” Pawel thankfully changes the topic as Mike quizzically walks away.

Back at my desk I continued to ponder the mayo on hot dog quandary. Yes, I’ve been cited for weird condiment choices such as salt on oranges, soy sauce on mangoes, and sugar on spaghetti bolognese, BUT mayonnaise on hot dogs is totally acceptable. It’s delicious too, and is fast becoming a global culinary phenomenon. Check out my very international stack and expand your gastronomical horizons.

Convinced? Try ketchup on fried chicken. Yum!

The Searchme staff is stackin’ it like crazy. We’re loving our new media search functions. Barbara is going to email her friends with a photo stack of all their cats; we‚re sharing sports and travel stacks on Facebook; we’ve all laughed and groaned about the employee photos stack (see last week’s post); and at any given moment, someone’s listening to a music video stack. A few days ago I heard Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man” blaring from our CEO’s office, and I turned around to see a streaming black-and-white YouTube video of the young Bob Dylan illuminating Randy’s large flat-screen monitor, framed by the Searchme interface. Even from the vantage point of my desk, yards away, Dylan looked and sounded beautiful, talented and revolutionary.

Searchme’s sleek new interface, interestingly enough, provides a good frame for nostalgia. I haven’t had a chance to create a stack of family photos yet (mom’s going to love it!), but last night I spent hours image-searching the names of places I’ve lived in the past: Ann Arbor, Boston, Chapel Hill. Our Flickr-driven image search let me revisit each town through the eyes of fellow citizens. They’d done a great job of capturing the famous and obscure spots that make each of these towns feel like home.

Try it out! Run a Searchme search for your town, then press the “image” button in the top left corner to focus on image results only. And if the pictures bring certain music to mind (what were you listening to, last time you were there?) you can search for a band, then press the “video” button to see your favorite group in action. There’s some great archival footage out there. Whether it’s the Beatles, Bowie, or Britney, we’ve got something for you.

A few days ago I set out to research the recent Iowa floods. A search for Iowa floods revealed many useful and informative results from Iowa government offices, FEMA, USGS, etc. But as I was browsing through the results, the website for the Des Moines Register caught my eye. I could see it was a nicely designed page with photo galleries, videos, blogs, and more on the floods. When I explored the Des Moines Register site further I found an interactive map with user-submitted photos and stories, a flood news widget, e-mail and text message news alerts, a Q&A forum, and much more.

Viewing text-only search results, I might have easily passed right by this site for a couple of reasons. As a researcher, I have found over the past few years that many newspapers — whether due to budget issues or other reasons — often do not offer the in-depth information I’m looking for on many topics. And being a Californian with no ties to Iowa, I am not as familiar with the quality of Iowa news sources as I am with those in my home state. But here at the Des Moines Register was an impressive website integrating many Web 2.0 technologies to usefully convey news about the disaster!

What other web sites have I missed because I did not see them? Even an experienced searcher has much to gain from using Searchme.

Here at Searchme, we happily drink our own cool-aid. Not only do we use our homegrown search engine for the usual stuff like vacation planning or work-related research, we also use it as a tool to visually present information to co-workers.

Our company leaders are big fans of Searchme as a presentation tool. Randy, our CEO created a stack of employees’ mugshots to help everyone get acquainted with each other. This is especially helpful in a growing company with 2 offices, and several employees working from other states and countries. Now people can focus on their jobs instead of constantly wondering what Colette in PR looks like.

Jennifer, our HR Director will use Searchme stacks (instead of the usual Powerpoint deck) as her visual aid for new hire orientation presentations. We all think it’s a great way to introduce new employees to the cool and elegant user experience we’re trying to impart to the world. She also hopes this will keep her audience awake, and forever get rid of that “what does a vacation request form look like” question.

On the recruiting front, our once-plain careers page will undergo a major facelift as we convert from HTML pages to Searchme stacks. This will allow candidates to search for the perfect job super-easily.

How are you using Searchme? I’d love to know!

Until now, finding and sharing things on the Web was really a pain. For example, let me tell you about one of my favorite bands, I’m From Barcelona, using the old skool approach:

Dear Searchme User:

Check out this cool band, I’m From Barcelona. Did I tell you they’re cool?

Home page: http://www.imfrombarcelona.com
Video-We’re From Barcelona: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwwbXHNGsjU
Lyrics: http://www.lyricsbox.com/im-from-barcelona-lyrics-6fm62.html
Cool Pic: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7321589@N07/851789876
Cool Pic 2: http://www.flickr.com/photos/66262945@N00/2458874585
Cool Pic 3: http://www.flickr.com/photos/81801869@N00/1025087162
Treehouse (my fave): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KkhxrtC8lo
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27m_from_Barcelona

I hope you like them!

John

Yowza. First of all, it took me a fair amount of work to copy-paste to create that email for you. And, now you’ve got to click back-and-forth through the list until you’ve seen each page.

Compare that to how sharing pages works in Searchme Stacks:

Isn’t that cool? It’s just one of the many things made possible by visual search.

I love how easy it is to create stacks, and I love how easy it is to share them in email, in your blog, or on your Facebook or Myspace page. I can’t wait to see all the different kinds of stacks people will make!

Follow John Holland on twitter: “follow johnholland”

Last week, we had a fun happy hour at Sports Basement that included refreshments and SB discount coupons. Searchme new employees got to mingle with colleagues and the oldies got to catch up.

The biggest sensations of the event were Isabella who, according to herself, is two and a half years old, and Galicia, who is two. Galicia is bilingual and loves baby carrots and Isabella enjoys yoga and also made friends with a gigantic lavender hippo.

Lively conversation among colleagues ranged from the possibility of raising goats in Oakland and Nerf wars strategies to the latest in software development.

As we sail into the summer, we are looking forward to outings that include the children and dogs. Cat people are in a little disadvantage here but…we might sneak one or two in…

Here are Galicia and Isabella discussing the stylish features of the pink goggles:

“If only I could see that web page, I know I’d recognize it! Searchme!”

Thanks, ladies. Keep your eyes on the road.