FindingDulcinea.com, for example, employs an editorial staff and calls
itself the librarian of the web. 
Manoush Zomorodi reports.

Looking for something online?  Chances are you go here. 
  
According to research firm Hitwise, Google was used for 70% of searches in
the US in July.
Google is the top search engine with Yahoo and Microsoft coming in at
number 2 & 3.

And yet, there are some small companies popping up that hope to capture
that small percentage of the population looking for an alternative.

findingDulcinea.com says it's a better way to search because it vets
information first before passing it on to users. 
Mark Moran is CEO of findingDulcinea.com.

 Mark Moran, CEO, findingDulcinea.com saying: 
"When you go to a search engine you get millions of results in half
a second.  What you should really be telling the search engine is hey take 10
minutes and just give me the 20 results I need. That's what we've done for
you, in effect."

Instead of using algorithms, findingDulcinea's staff of editors pick out
what they call credible, high-quality and trustworthy Web sites.  

The site also offers magazine style features, background information on
news events, and guides on broad subjects. 

Mark Moran, CEO, findingDulcinea.com saying: 
"If you're going to a country for the first time and want to know
everything about that country you can't go to a search engine and put India in
the search box and get a good result. you're just going to be blitzed with
zillions of results."

While findingDulcinea uses humans to power its site, other new search
engines use emerging technology.
Cuil.com, launched in July, says it can index a far larger portion of the
Web than Google. 
Another one, Cluuz.com is a semantic search engine that looks for meanings
of words rather than just matching what you type in.

But some kinks are yet to be worked out on these and other new sites...


Which means, for now, these alternatives are unlikely to usurp that blank
white page.


Manoush Zomorodi, Reuters, New York