Bola Sociology Design

Design+Internet: Busk

October 16th, 2009

Busk is a research tool full of particularities. The first one is the design of the site itself, which surprises people that are used to the boring layouts of search engines.

The site is not only good looking but also has innovative functions build into it, one of them is the search which is based in a feeder style, where the user can read several news without leaving the same Busk page, just opening new tabs, with photo, text and a link to the original post.

Besides that, the news are presented in a cronological order and the search can be filtered by language, categories and date. It is not necessary to register, but registered users can use it as a feeder with the additional advantage that you can save personalized URLS, and then share them with your friends.

Busk helps us to see the positive side, which sometimes is forgotten, about the enormous quantities of content one can find online. Brings to mind the theory of the psycologist Barry Schwartz which, in his book The Paradox of choice, affirms the critical role of making choices to express our autonomy and our freedom. According to Barry, the problem is the filter: having to choose among too many options makes us miserable and constantly feeling like we are missing something or that we have made the wrong choice.

Because it is an excellent mixture between search engine, feeder and a social network, is extremely practical and tailored to anyone who loves to keep updated with the best news.

Read more about another great Busk feature after the jump.

With so many different aspects, it is not surprising that Busk wants to be more than a search engine, it also donates 1 gram of food in your behalf to NGOs that fight against hunger. And they explain the option: “Organize Internet information isn’t our sole goal. We are interested to understand how we can improve society directly from web browsing. For that, for every search performed we will donate 1 gram of food in your behalf to NGOs that fight against hunger (if you know and trust in any NGO having this profile, please, refer us).Doesn’t look much, but with only a fragment of access that the great search sites have, would be already possible to donate tons of food by day.”

O site está disponível em português, inglês e espanhol.