Collecta, a new search engine, launched today with a unique twist... they're one of the first real-time search engines.

Searching with Collecta, you get real-time results from blogs, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, social sites and various news outlets.



Collecta's homepage gives the following description of the new search engine...

"Collecta is not like other search engines.
The web is alive with real-time information. So why search a stale archive? Collecta monitors the update streams of popular realtime blogs and sites like Twitter, Wordpress, and Flickr, so we can show you results as they happen. Give it a try."

What do you think of Collecta's real-time search? Tell us.

Collecta's UI is very simplistic and easy on the eye. No frills, just search. Upon doing a search, your term shows on the left (with options), results appear in the middle and selected/highlighted content appears on the right. (click the image below for full size view)



With each search users have to option to include/exclude certain search parameters such as Stories (blog posts, articles), Comments (on blog posts), Updates (Twitter, Jaiku, Identica), and Photos (Flickr). Collecta even has an option to pause a search stream (not really sure why).

Under the hood Collecta uses the XMPP (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol) technology, which allows Collecta to keep tabs on information as it happens.

Collecta, so far, has had a very so-so launch day. The search engine was down for quite some time, leaving the company having to explain themselves via Twitter to potential searchers.





I guess they could argue that the demand for real-time search was so great their servers couldn't handle the traffic.

It's no secret that search is evolving, and real-time search is the future. Google's own Larry Page has even said, "I have always thought we needed to index the web every second to allow real-time search".

Twitter, for example, already employs real-time search... and it works wonderfully. I often find myself using Twitter's search over Google, just for the real-time aspect.

So, with the launch of Collecta... when do some of the major players jump on the real-time bandwagon? Let us know what you think.