SearchMe

Google searches may be robust, but finding what you really need can be a morass of phishing sites, overclicked back-buttons, and George Washington when you're craving some sweet-ass George Washington Carver. Get search disclosure upfront, with SearchMe.

A proprietary search engine with a visual bent, SM facilitates more-precise searching by instantly previewing each results page in an interface similar to iTunes cover flow, only without the missing Now That's What I Call Music! 29 album art. A side-scroll bar lets you breeze through results, presented as snapshots of the linked page, so you can pre-see which contain click-worthy content; further winnowing's achieved by categories that filter themes common throughout your results, e.g., "Baseball", "Travel", and "Work & Career" -- distinctions that are super-redundant if you're George Brett. SM rocks image, music, and video searches as well, but with the added bonus of a tunes/vids player (sourced from Imeem/YouTube) embedded directly in the results, and also links to paid downloads, which is a completely cute concept.

SM also lets you create "stacks": sites hand-picked by you and presented in SM's slick preview style, which you can access yourself/email around via a unique url, so everyone can benefit from your dutiful research on the man who made the peanut into a star.