Per Persson and Felix af Ekenstam : Spezify

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In this episode Hrishi and Ben talk to Per Persson and Felix af Ekenstam, founders of Spezify, a semantic search tool often used for brainstorming.

Spezify was founded four years ago by Per Persson and  Felix af Ekenstam in Sweden, as they were tinkering with the idea of getting a slice of the internet across all media just in one search, instead of in separate searches.

 

Spezify defies traditional “googling”. It was created out of a personal need. Per and Felix often found themselves doing image searches and leaning more towards a visually rich results. When performing just a Google search, they were missing all other media. There might me value in, for example, music/podcast on Soundcloud, or tweets.

Spezify materialises the notion of surfing the web. When you enter a term, everything happens in the flash file. Content providers are contacted through the API. The result is put together in a common format, ending up in beautiful tiles.

People use Spezify for brainstorming. There is something in the visual presentation, the visual appeal, that helps people to think creatively. Teachers use it a lot at schools, as a starting point to explore subjects. Spezify is much more fun than many other search tools.

 

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