Searching for an alternative?

So many search engines. Where do they come from? What makes them think they have something to break the stranglehold the big three search engines have on us? (And really, there’s only one real strangler, and we all know who that is.)

So, here comes Kosmix.com, another Silicon Valley pretender that says its search service is superior to the big guys. Its mission and plan is based on organizing all possible searches into key topics, and then having each searcher choose a topic area for the search to drill down.

So far Kosmix offers just three topics by which to drill down in search results: right health, right travel, right autos. The startup says it will keep adding additional topics over time.

Try it out, using some phrase like “Madison, Wisconsin.” If you apply that search just to the health topic, you find doctors, clinics and assorted other advice all tagged to Madison. If you choose right travel, you’ll find dozens and dozens of links to stuff about things to do or how to go from here to Madison.

You have to like the simplicity of what Kosmix is doing. If only we had three topics that we could reduce every search to.