Today I was contacted by the folks at KallOut to tell me about their product that competes with the Hyperwords Firefox Plugin I blogged about earlier.
KallOut is what Hyperwords is, but for more than just Firefox. I am calling this a preview, because as I am sitting upstairs tonight blogging on my Macbook Pro, I can’t actually test this software. I can, however, tell you what it does and where to get it if you think it’s something that might be useful to you.
According to the site:
Find it Faster with KallOut
Selection-based search allows you to get results up to 10-times faster than a traditional browser-based search. Instead of opening a browser every time you need to search, simply select any word or phrase, hover over the menu target and choose the appropriate KallOut menu item. Learn More »
Supercharge your searches with BestGuess™
The BestGuess system matches your selection with the most relevant KallOut choices whenever you select a term. If you are unsure about a topic, there is a good chance that BestGuess will point you in the right direction.
Stay focused with Results in Context
KallOut displays search results adjacent to your selected search term in floating information palettes. Seeing your results in context, instead of opening a new window, avoids the disruption of constantly switching between applications.
Not bad! A quick view of the video and screenshots show what is quite possibly a very useful application. This installs in Windows and gives you this functionality across browsers and office applications. It could be a very handy utility indeed.
The CEO of KallOut emailed me to tell me about it and I will give it an install and possibly update this article with my findings. It’s a compelling product that fills a need of many people who are constantly having to use the web to research all sorts of things. If you have experience with it, let us know what you think.
Tweet
Jason,
I really appreciate you previewing KallOut and look forward to hearing what you think when you get a chance to try it on a Windows machine.
As you’ll note in the About Us section of the web site, we are looking to hire a Mac developer so we can bring selection-based search to the Mac as well as the PC.
Thanks,
Lee Lorenzen
CEO, KallOut