PUBLIC MARKS from "Mal Burns" with tag search

Useful

Another new search facility in Beta. This one allows you to investigate worldwide libraries - just that, pure and simple!

A new "mashup" site which integrates multiple search features into one grid. Still in Beta but it looks promising.

Google is king - we all know that! But sometimes it isn't quite what you want for the job. This piece lists the best alternatives and includes a review of many of them. Useful.

The web is full of search engines these days and overkill means most still use Google for simplicity. This site is well worth bookmarking though - it gives you an online multi-engine interface and subject refining in one. The only drawback is it's use of a frameset, although if you're doing a lot of research even that may be an advantage.

A very interesting looking website where you can enter searches for lost friends and others. The ingenious trick here is that it uses the Google engine to create an index which is itself indexed again by Google. This means that if you don't have any luck, at least your search request will be logged and if the person you are looking for, or someone who knows them, ever does a similar search, your request will appear in the links display. Your own information goes through this site so your privacy is kept away from the direct search results. Neat idea!

Yet another video search portal but without any real networking facilities. It's worth mentioning because it has a good political links section and also emphasises the use of tags to connect various movies together. Nor does it seem subject to the "mass overload" which can make other sites too cumbersome to navigate. Not the best, but worthy all the same.

A good quick site to view the most popular videos on the web at any given time. Sadly, they don't seem to publish an RSS feed which would make life even easier, so it's a bookmarking job.