f.a.q.
We get asked plenty of questions. Here are some of the more answerable ones.
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Can Wundrbar _________?
Check out the list of actions on our help page to see everything that's already hooked into Wundrbar. Or try typing what you want into Wundrbar and see what happens. If you don't see what you want, then create a new wishlist request, or vote up the requests that you want to see happen. I found a bug. We know. And we've probably found it too. If you want to report it to us, that's fantastic -- head on over to our feedback form. Are you indexing the web? No, we're not building a huge index of billions of web pages. We'll let other people handle that. We're providing an interface so you can do the things you want online more quickly and easily than ever before. So Wundrbar is like Quicksilver for the web? Yes, you're on the right track. If you know Quicksilver, this is like Quicksilver for the web. The trouble is, not that many people know Quicksilver! We aim to be as quick, easy, intuitive, and extensible as Quicksilver, with the difference of controlling the web instead of your desktop. (For those wondering, Quicksilver is a quick launch bar for Max OS X - or, put another way, Quicksilver is like Wundrbar for the Mac desktop.) So Wundrbar is basically a command line for the web? Yes and no. We at Wundrbar have a lot of respect for the command line interface - it's fast and powerful. However, it's not intuitive. Unless you use some command every week, then you have to dig through the man page to figure out how to use it again, you know? And that's not convenient. So we've built Wundrbar to get past that problem - so you don't have to remember particular keywords, or the order of parameters, or the parameter flags. Can you imagine a UNIX flight search command? It might look like 'flightsearch -from sfo -to nyc -leave 6/1/08 -return 6/8/08'. With Wundrbar, that becomes 'fly sfo nyc june 6 to june 8' - or many variations thereof! Wundrbar can also do UNIXy command line stuff like piping and grep, though some of that stuff will be kept hidden under the hood until the rough edges are smoothed out. Finally, like a traditional command line, you can write programs for Wundrbar! We're fine-tuning this feature and should be releasing it very soon. |
How are you interpreting commands? Are you doing some kind of natural language processing?
We're not tackling natural language processing - so don't type a complete sentence into Wundrbar and expect us to understand it! But we are processing your commands with more intelligence than any other search bar, so we can help you get what you want faster. As for how we do that - well, we don't want to give away all our secrets, but we're using custom implementations of well-known algorithms along with a few off-the-shelf tools. With plenty of regex in the mix, too. If you like thinking about this kind of thing, and are looking to join an exciting new startup, by all means shoot us an email. Do you guys know Yubnub? How does Wundrbar compare? Yes, we are big fans of Yubnub - it's an awesome tool. Wundrbar and Yubnub share the goal of making it quicker and easier to use the web, and both offer a single search box as an interface. Wundrbar has a broader scope than Yubnub and aims to be far more intuitive. Yubnub is more like the traditional UNIX command line, which is powerful but not intuitive, because it requires a very particular syntax and / or flagged parameters. With Wundrbar, you can perform an action by using a wide range of shortcuts and keywords, and the parameters are automagically figured out. For example, try out a flight search with Wundrbar - all the parameters are grabbed as you enter your search. In addition, Wundrbar manages your logins, so that you can use Wundrbar to manage your personal accounts from any computer, from email, or even by text message (those features coming soon!). Does Wundrbar come in any other flavors? Sure thing. Head on over to our extras page for the Firefox search plugin and toolbar. Soon we'll have an iPhone app, a Facebook app, maybe a 12-can fridge-pack... well, we'll start with the apps. If you'd like to see another incarnation of Wundrbar, let us know! Wait, I don't get it. If I can use Wundrbar as a shortcut for everything else, why would I ever need another search engine? You do get it. |