Per and Susanne Koch, editors of Pandia, said about Quintura Kids:

“..If these are not what you were looking for, a search cloud hovers above: Your search term is highlighted in the middle of related terms. As you point your mouse to the terms in the cloud, Quintura modifies your query and the search results. Even though this might not be as intuitive as Boolify, it is easy to understand how Quintura Kids works.”

The Quintura search cloud helps to determine user intent and gives search directions. In addition to Quintura Kids, Quintura offers hosted site search service for online publishers, Quintura Site Search.

Founded in 2006, Evernote has 2 million users. The service, which is available in English and Russian, works online and on mobile devices BlackBerry, iPhone, Windows Mobile and Palm Pre as well as on Windows and Mac computers.

Evernote utilizes a “freemium” business model. The basic service is free but offers a limited amount of online storage space. For a small monthly fee, users get more storage, increased security and can share notes.

Larry Ferlazzo, editor of Websites of the Day, said about Quintura:

“It provides search results in a visual “cloud.” I’d characterize it as similar to the present version of Kartoo, the well-known search engine, but much less confusing”

The Quintura search cloud helps to determine user intent and gives search directions. In addition to being a search destination, Quintura offers hosted site search service, Quintura Site Search and safe, visual-based search engine for children, Quintura for Kids.

PCWorld.com

Here is an explanation why Rick turned to Quintura:

“Because I can’t monitor my kids’ computer activity every second of the day, I’m starting by replacing Google with Quintura. This kid-friendly search engine lets you type in a query and/or click your way through a word cloud and get G-rated results in return.”

Since 2007, the teachers and librarians of more than 1,000 elementary schools in the US, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand have been using Quintura for Kids, a kids-friendly search engine developed and operated by Quintura.

Here are screen shots of search for “Apple + iPhone” on Quintura.com and Google.com.

To join the conversation, go to the Twitter search for “Quintura” or leave your comments here on this blog.

Will this be the end of the visual search engines or just the beginning?

We wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Charles Knight explains:

“When you search with Quintura, you see a two-dimensional (i.e. not a list) tag cloud.

The other words in the box are there to allow you to explore concepts related to your specific query. See something you hadn’t thought of? Click on it and the cloud re-orients itself around that new term. You can delete extraneous terms as well. But don’t worry, they also provide a traditional list for you – just in case.

Quintura is also now available in several language “flavors” as well!

Content publishers should also investigate Quintura for possible use on their sites.”

The list of Top 10 Alternative Search Engines of 2008 (in alphabetical order) includes ChaCha, CoolIris, SearchMe, Viewzi, Faroo, KallOut, Kosmix, Mednar, Quintura, SeeqPod, Surfcanyon, and Taggalaxy.de.

Disclosure: Quintura is one of the sponsors of AltSearchEngines.

- Search Cloud Images: a new interface enables web publishers to embed images and banners (i.e. brand logos and advertisements) in the search cloud. When users mouse over an icon or search term, it expands into a banner, dramatically increasing the click-through rate in tests.

- Icon Blink: To attract users to images within the search cloud, we offer publishers customizable special effects, including blinking icons, to help boost Click-Through -Rates.

- Standalone Search Bar Option: The stand-alone search bar enables publishers to link Quintura Site Search to a separate web-page, so that when search terms are entered, a new window opens, displaying the full-range of search results.

- Color Customization – Additional color options allow web publishers to customize all aspects of the site search display, to match their web-site.

- Language Localization – We added French, Italian and Spanish morphology engines, in addition to the existing English, German, and Russian systems, producing more contextually accurate search results in a variety of languages and geographical locations.

Quintura Site Search is free for web publishers through an advertising revenue-sharing agreement and is also available on a subscription basis.

We have also updated Quintura Kids on www.quinturakids.com.

It is a safe, fun and easy-to-use search destination for younger internet users with Christmassy design.

The investments that are made by Troika’s fund include $4.5 million in provider of electronic note applications, Evernote, $5 million in designer of stereoscopic 3D visualization systems for gamers, iZ3D and $5 million in provider of 3D publishing software Cortona3D, ParallelGraphics.

Evernote and ParallelGraphics have been founded by brothers Stepan and George Pachikov, respectively. They previously founded ParaGraph Company, which was merged with Silicon Graphics in 1997. iZ3D has been founded by Vadim Asadov of hi-tech incubator NeurOK.

Evernote raised $6 million from private investors in August 2006. ParallelGraphics previously raised several million dollar from Mint Capital.

In June 2008, Troika Capital Partners, which also manages three Russian regional venture funds with total equity capital of $50 million, invested $4 million in iiko, a vendor of restaurant ERP software. Mint Capital and Troika Capital Partners are investors into leading Russian ‘interest media’ publisher Gameland.

Quintura Kids is used by thousands of elementary school students in the U.S., Canada, UK and other countries every day. According to site statistics, Quintura Kids has 75 percent returning visitors.

The site is the first visual search engine for kids that offers safe web searches for kids.

The search engine can be easily embedded onto any web or blog page as a search widget by clicking the Embed it! link in the top-right corner of the screen and copying & pasting an embed code onto the page.

In June 2007, Quintura Kids was ranked the highest among the kid-friendly search engines by Search Engine Watch.

The search engines for kids were ranked in five categories including a visual appeal to a child; relevance to a child, based on chosen searches; commercial vs. educational, with the educational slant creating a higher score; and ease of navigation for 7-10 year olds.

The Russian version of Quintura Kids has been also updated with a new look.