Zeus of the ‘NetReviews of the Coolest Sites on the Net

Have you ever tried mixing random liquors, only to come up with something that tastes like it came straight from the Nyquil reject batch?  Yea, yea me neither.  But seriously, this is where ExtraTasty and their recipes step in and help make that mixing/experimenting process easier.  With thousands of drink recipes to choose from, and a new drink of the day every day, this site offers liquor lovers many cool drink options.

Doing a random search on ‘tequila’, 271 results are returned, ranging from guava margarita to citrus express to death wish.  Each gives the booze, the mixer, the garnish, and the directions.  Ratings and comments are included with each recipe to give users a better idea of what the drink will be like.  So before you decide to host that next party, be sure to hit up ExtraTasty to get some unique drink ideas.

While this still remains to be seen, the founders of the enormously popularly and widely referenced Wikipedia website, have decided to give it a go.  Their search engine site Wikia Search is similar to the big three (Google, Yahoo, and MSN) in that the results are displayed in the standard fashion, with ads along the top and right hand side.

To test out the relevancy of this newest Google challenger, I did a search on ‘basketball’.  The results are displayed in a manner that is very similar to Google with a few exceptions.  The first result (as I also tested with several other searches) is always a wikipedia article relating to the search query, which makes sense I guess.  Also along the top of the results page, various topics related to the search query are given.  In the case of my ‘basketball’ search, the topics included: shoes, games, drills, court, plays, rules, etc.

Another unique feature of the site is that users never have to go page by page through the results.  As you scroll down the page new results are continually added, so you can continue to just scroll down until you find the result that best matches your search.

Cool features aside, the determining factor of whether or not this search site will be successful lies solely in the relevancy of the search results given.  So far they are doing a pretty good job.  As for being a serious competitor to Google…only time will tell!