Ambiently is a “discovery engine”, leading you to new websites that you may not have otherwise found.

This service is no doubt developed for people that either really want to dig into a keyword or search phrase or are just happy meandering through the web. I’m sure that SEO marketers will enjoy this app too - an ‘Ambient Page’ is like a library of back links.

If Ambiently markets itself as a search engine, it’s in for a whole world of hurt. As a tool that unearths every backlink - albeit weird, wonky and often obscure - this app has interesting appeal.

Relevance is key to success. The beta release of Ambiently is popping up with some non-related links in the same way a cat shows you they love you by giving you a dessicated bird as a present. They gotta zap those bugs or lose all credibility.

So, you decide to go strawberry picking for the day. No problems. You look up the Yellow Pages and find a strawberry picking farm not too far away. You load up the SUV with the kids and a picnic basket and you drive to Aunty Sally’s Strawberry Fields Forever Farm. Once you’re there you start picking strawberries. As you pick, you realise that some patches have more or better strawberries. As you deplete each patch you spy another, and another, and so on.  Pretty soon you’ve got a full belly and a full basket and you’re laughing at the poor shmoes that are dilligently picking strawberries up the line and back down again.

This is how Ambiently.com is approaching search (or more accurately, “discovery”). Instead of working your way through each Google results page for new content, you can bring up an ‘Ambient Page’ on any page on the www. On this page a whole list of links is presented that relate to the original content. Why is this a good thing? Well, for one thing, you are going to find blog entries and tiny-itsy-bitsy webpages that you would never find using a major search engine. Of course, in many cases these websites are unfindable for a very good reason.

Ambiently.com uses a bookmarklet that you drag to your browser’s tool bar which is cool - only if it reminds you constantly by staring you balefully in that bookmarklet way. From any page you can bring up the ‘Ambient Page’ (the links page) by clicking the bookmarklet. From here the links are presented in a very minimalist Google-like list. Links open in a new window (unlike the Ambient Page itself) making for a fairly smooth surfing experience.

There’s a few question marks hanging around. The public beta is uncovering some unrelated links in the ambient pages for some popular websites. Ambiently.com blame the structures of some websites, but whatever the reason, these bugs have got to be cleared up quick-smart: irrelevant links = no user trust = no users.

The question also needs to be asked: is ‘discovering’ from an ambient page really going to give you better/more relevant links than just Googling? Ambitently.com try to sell the fact that you don’t need to think of a good key word term to search on. Hmmm… Is the Internet population really having difficulty thinking of something to type into google if the want to find a list of strawberry farms in the local area? Perhaps…

Ambiently.com is doing a good job in trying to make the Internet a more content rich place to live in. There’s just this feeling that they’re trying to provide a solution to everybody that won’t work for everybody. Maybe there would be a better angle in targetting Ambiently to a more niche crowd such as SEO pros or as a research tool?

I’m looking forward to seeing Ambiently work bug free, but regardless, a promising launch.

Check out Ambiently.com here.