FourBux

Have you tried Scour yet?

Have you heard of Scour? It’s still in beta, and while the main functionality is aggregate searching, it’s billing itself as a social search engine. Now, the details are a little light on what the social aspects are, but what I do like is that it searches Google, MSN, and Yahoo much like CrazedList searches CraigsList. And yes, I know about MSN and Yahoo, but until they make nice, why not search both of them with one click? This is especially helpful for me because I don’t search MSN or Yahoo by default, so this goes a long way towards helping me see what else is out there. The individual result’s respective ranking in Google, Yahoo and MSN is also displayed too, which is kind of an interesting idea as well.

Another cool function is the ability to rate and comment on your search results, with results rated higher showing up as “more relevant.” I’m not sure I subscribe to the idea that because someone else found this particular search result as helpful that I necessarily will, but I’ve learned to live on the edge and use Wikipedia too, so maybe this will grow on me. And while I don’t necessarily see myself as the person who, while looking for something, will stop and leave a note on a search result page, I’m sure there are folks out there who will.

There’s also a function to earn points, either by searching or referring friends. With the accumulation of said points there is the potential for earning Visa gift card, with the idea that the search engines are making buckets of money each year, why not pay a little bit of that back to the users who are actually creating the traffic. To that I ask why not? It’s got to be better than the grand total of $8.74 that I’ve made letting Google park ads on my blog for over a year. At least with Scour I’m getting something I want, which is decent search results.

I’m not going to lie, if you sign up from here I get some referral points, even though I’m still a little unsure about what that actually means. I’m assuming there’s a way to become friends in this thing, since it prompts you to invite your friends, but I can’t figure it out. Maybe that part isn’t hooked up yet, but it will be interesting to see just how far it will go. Will my friends be able to see what I’m searching for? Or recommend a certain search result and send it to me a la StumbleUpon?

Either way, I just thought you might want to know.