The Factbites search engine was launched a year ago. Now Rapid Intelligence, the company behind Factbites, is testing new topic based vertical search engines.

Rapid Intelligence is based in Sydney, Australia. Their special expertise is in the fields of computational linguistics, artificial intelligence, and evolving algorithms.

Factbites
Factbites performs your search on the basis of your whole topic area, not just your keyword. In this way it can return relevant results on your topic that don’t necessarily mention the word you searched for.

On their web site, Rapid Intelligence calls Factbites a search engine/encyclopedia hybrid. Unlike a regular search engine, the search results are presented as a summary of each web page, which you can read from beginning to end.

The summaries contain real sentences, not just keywords or excerpts. This way you get a clear picture of what each destination site is about.

Along with the search results, you also get suggestions for related topics. This way you can rephrase or extend your search easily.

The children of Factbites
Now Rapid Intelligence is testing the same technology on topic based vertical search engines. These children of Factbites use the same technology base, but they also rely on an engine for learning specifically about individual topics.

CompWisdom is focused on computing, programming and the Internet. The user interface is good, although the colors are a little bit bland. We enjoy the geeky search box: bright green text on a black background. It’s so “80’s”.

Finance Records, targets the highly competitive niche of business and finance. It comes in the same peach hue as the Financial Times and there is stock market information even on the front page.

According to Tom Rakoczi of Rapid Intelligence, there will be more spin-offs when the results of the initial beta testing are clear. Later on spin-offs will be announced on factbites.com.

What I look for in a search engine is a tidy, user-friendly design and relevant results. Factbites and its children have more than this. The combination of topic based search technology and results presented in easy to read summaries is very attractive.