Find answers to frequently asked questions using SnappyFingers

Posted on October 12, 2008 at 5:26 am

You have probably noticed that just about every website that sells a product or sells a service has some kind of FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) section that tells you the basics about how the product/service works, troubleshooting tips, and possibly future updates/enhancements, etc.

Most of the time if we are looking for a specific answer, such as how long as does an iPhone battery last, we will just search that in Google. However, if you want more information about a particular product, such as various details about iPhone batteries, you’d have to perform several Google searches and click on a good number of links to collect information from various sites about iPod batteries.

SnappyFingers is a cool niche search engine and online research tool that allows you to find answers to your questions by returning results from FAQs stored all over the Internet. It basically indexes as many FAQs as it can find and then returns results that include the FAQ questions and answers.

For example, going back to iPhone batteries, here are the results you would get if you search “iPhone battery” in SnappyFingers:

So as you can see, I get a list of frequently asked questions relating to an iPhone battery, such as is the iPhone battery replaceable, how long does the iPhone battery last, how to maximize the iPhone battery, etc. This information is hard to get from Google. For example, if I search iPhone battery in Google, I get the following results:

Note that the first couple of results relate to replacing your iPhone battery and then shopping results for batteries. There are a couple of results on extending the battery life, but definitely if you want to get INFORMATION about a product or service, SnappyFingers is way better.

When you click on a result, it will not bring you to the source site, but will show the answer within SnappyFingers and will also give you related questions and answers. For example, if I click on “Is the iPhone battery replaceable?”, I’ll also see similar questions from different sites, so I can make sure I’m getting correct information from a trusted source.

Overall, it’s a cool way to perform research on a product or service and also just to get a question answered about something! Also, check out Diigo, another powerful online research tool. Enjoy!

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