Vision is a search application developed by ITWiz Limited based in London, UK. Vision was designed to enhance our experience of online search and was inspired by blacktree's quicksilver application for OSX. We like to think of Vision a bit like Quicksilver for the web (a web launcher).
Every day, we were performing hundreds of searches for all kinds of information and most of the time we found ourselves using the same services to find similar types of information. When I look for a map, I use 'Google maps', when I need a company information I use 192.com and so on.
Normally the choice is either to click a bookmark and then search the respective service or to type the service into Google, select it and then search on the resulting site (e.g. Google "192" and then follow the link and finally perform my search on 192.
I stopped using bookmarks years ago (I hated managing them) and Google became my portal to the web. Google Zeitgheist 2009 reported that amongst it's top searches were Yahoo, Facebook and Bing. As you can see, people have started using Google instead of the URL bar.
People have begun to use the web in two different ways. One - to explore and find new resources and two - to access information from known resources (exploration vs exploitation). Vision addresses the primary need to exploit specific services on the web but also allows us to explore when we need.
Within Vision, we've built our own search interface that uses the first word to determine the type of search you want to run. The search is then performed on a chosen service.
Vision is designed to stay open which is why it always fires a new window whenever you search. This all comes back to not needing a mouse to search. Simply search for something, and then close the window when your done with and you'll see the search window ready and waitingtacc.
"Person Bill Gates in london" - Submits to 192.com with "bill gates" as the person and "london" as the location
"square Cafe London" - Submits to Google Squares "Cafe London" (great for comparisons)
"Map Paris" - Submits to Google Maps so you get the map instantly
"houseprice london" - Submits to houseprices.co.uk with "london" as location
"wr population of france/2" - Submits to wolfram alpha which then performs the calculation and shows the result
"g jazz" - Submits to Google with the term "jazz"
"validate ITWiz.co.uk" - Submits to w3c with the domain as "www.ITWiz.co.uk"
"php explode" - Sends to first result in google which takes you to the PHP.net maual for explode
"ping google.com" - Sends the data to Network-Tools.com to Ping google.com
"whois antiv.net" - Uses domaintools.com for whois info
Other queries (those we haven't written a primary word for) will use Google's "Lucky Guess" and normally puts you through to the right place. E.g. type "facebook" and Vision sends the word to the Top google result automatically. This is great as often, we already know what the top google result will be.
Vision is not about reinventing the wheel. Vision can (very simply) take advantage of all it's selected services' powers to search. For example:
"5*3" - This query is automatically submitted to google which executes a calculation and gives you the result
"lat london" - Uses Wolfram Alpha which understands 'lat' to mean 'latitude' and gives you the result.
Vision lets us find specific information very quickly.
Vision isn't really very complicated at all. The results you get from Vision are the results of third party services. Vision only searches services that have been added to it manually - it doesn't index the web like a search engine - and for good reason, becuase the services it uses already do this very well!
So is Vision supposed to replace Google? No of course not - much of Vision's power relies on Google - but also other platforms as well. We use Vision to harness the power of Google and other services. Vision is about shaving fractions of a second off our searches and getting directly to the results instead of lists of possibilities. It's also designed to completely remove the need for a mouse when searching.
In the future, Vision will become more intelligent and will be able to work out how to use services that haven't been added manually. It will also be able to pull specific data for you such as phone numbers, email addresses etc.
Vision was custom built for our needs but we had a very positive reaction when we showed it to people and I hope it will be helpful to many of you. Please send your suggestions to Vision@ITWiz.co.uk
Enjoy Vision!
Matthew Constable
Director - ITWiz ltd.
Google : g
192 people : 192 (use 'in' to seperate person from location)
123people : 123, Person (use 'in' to seperate person from location)
192 business : co, biz, company, business (use 'in' to seperate entity from location)
google maps : map, route, journey, directions, direct
google squared : square, sq, list
google video : video, vid
youtube : youtube, yt
Thesauraus : thes, thesauraus, alt
Thesauraus : dic, dict
Domain : domain, tld
google shopping : shopping, shop, base, buy
google news : news, gnews
google images : images, image, pic, gimage
morguefile : morguefile, morgue
google patent : patent
wikipedia : wiki
bbc : bbc
play.com : play
ebuyer : ebuyer
amazon : amazon
spotify : spotify
House Prices : houseprice (use '-' to for a postcode e.g AB1-3CD)
Ebay : ebay
argos : argos
Up My Street : street, postcode, location, area (use '-' to for a postcode e.g AB1-3CD)
Up My Street - Neighbours : neighbours, neighbour (use '-' to for a postcode e.g AB1-3CD)
Up My Street - Crime : crime, crimerate (use '-' to for a postcode e.g AB1-3CD)
Up My Street - Schools : schools, education (use '-' to for a postcode e.g AB1-3CD)
Up My Street - Transport : transport (use '-' to for a postcode e.g AB1-3CD)
Up My Street - Tax : tax, counciltax (use '-' to for a postcode e.g AB1-3CD)
Up My Street - Houses : houses (use '-' to for a postcode e.g AB1-3CD)
Wolfram Alpha : wolfram, wr, calculate, data, calc
Population : pop, population
Latitude : lat, latitude
Longitude : long, longitude
LatLong : latlong, latitudelongitude
Temp : temp, temperature
GDP : gdp
CROSSWORD SOLVER : crossword, cw
iPlayer : iplayer
W3C Validator : validate, w3c
Twitter : twitter
Whois : whois
dns : dns
ping : ping
QR Code : qr
Google Trend : trend, trends
Watch Series Online : series
BT Residential Phonebook : phone, bt
Director Search : director (Search for a name)
Create a HTML document with code: code, html
URL Shortening (bit.ly): short, bit, shorten, shorturl
BUSINESS PHONE NUMBER (integrated with Vision): num, bp, businessphone
Render HTML Code html, code (note that object embeds won't work)
Say No To 0870 0870,
Aviary Website Screenshot : aviary, screenshot (followed by a url)
Adober Kuler: kuler, colours, colors, cscheme (followed by a word or phrase)
EVERYTHING ELSE USES GOOGLE
Currency Conversion : --Coming Soon
National Rail : --Coming Soon
iTunes : --Coming Soon