Check Out the Web’s Hidden Treasures

Grokker, www.grokker.com

This Web-search tool requires a large download, the free trial is only 30 days, and the program isn’t as fast as one would like. Nonetheless, Grokker’s graphical approach to search is fascinating.

You surf from high-level topics (represented as colored balls) to sub topics (represented as balls within balls), eventually down to actual Web pages. This program is a blend of knowledge mapper, meta-search engine and smart browser. Grokker offers an interesting early glimpse of new metaphors for organizing and finding data online.