heapr.com – Search from Google, WolframAlpha, Twitter, Flickr and other sites all at once! via kwout

Heapr is a great mashing of a couple big dog search engines: Google, Twitter, Wikipedia and Wolfram Alpha, Flickr for images, and for video searching it searches Youtube, Vimeo and Hulu. When you complete a search your main results are from Google featured on the left. On the right side of the page one of the other three contestants is showcased and you can easily switch between these remaining three, which are set up like tabs, with the click of a button while never loosing the ever accurate Google results.

Heapr of course does loose some of the great functionality of Google search like the promote, similar, and comment buttons that add extra value to the original Google engine but the search results are the same because Heapr is powered by Google primarily.

Of course on of the most important aspects of any search engine for me is that it can be integrated into the my Firefox search bar and Heapr does that admirably giving me instant access to their search engine without ever having to go to their site.

I really like all the search engines that Heapr has mashed together and find each of them useful in their own way as they are all very different. Google is a mainstay search engine that always produces results. Wikipedia is a great starting point in researching a topic. Twitter is the best way to get a feel for what the masses are saying about certain topics , Wolfram Alpha is just creepy in how it just answers questions, Flickr is one of the most popular photo sharing sites, Youtube is a huge video sharing site that many people use as a search engine in and of itself, Vimeo is a great video website as is Hulu. The problem with each of those search engines is I forget about them or just don’t want to perform multiple searches on one topic, so I fall back on old Google and it always delivers. That is a problem that is solved with Heapr allowing me to search it all quickly and easily in one page, giving me a better cross section of answers.

Heapr is officially at the top of my search engine toolbar and is likely to stay for a while.

How can this be used for education?

It can save time and paint a more accurate and holistic picture of most internet searches than any one search engine can give because of the search engines it uses. Google gives the most popular results, Twitter is the pulse of the people and can give insight into what the popular belief about certain subjects. Wolfram Alpha is a fact engine that will do it’s best to answer you question as best it can (see my article on W.A.) and Wikipedia as we all know is a great resource used as a starting point for research.

Give Heapr to your students as an alternative to the search engines they are using, perhaps the additional information will spark some extra interest in a particular research paper. Check out the other articles on Search.