Point of Viewzi
Photo by Travis Isaacs.
The following is an obligatory "I've switched jobs" blog post. But not just any job, I'm now at Viewzi.com. As it reads on my business card, my job title is Front-End Viewzeloper. What is Viewzi, you ask? Good question! In a nutshell, it's a new way to look at search. Here's a succinct explanation:
Humans think in pictures. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then Viewzi is worth a million searches. But don't think of us as yet another visual search engine. It's more than just pictures, it's about visually presenting your results in the context of what you are searching for.
For instance, searching for the term NBA and then choosing "Video ×3 View" yields an array of results, as shown in the following screenshot. This figure doesn't do it justice though, because each thumbnail in the video view has full motion, showing a few seconds of each one in fast-forward, on a loop.
This is great for basketball fans such as myself: ½ Japanese and standing only 5'10" tall, this is about as close as I'll ever get to a professional court! Joking aside, I am excited about the office culture at Viewzi. It is is fast paced, yet relaxed. Here are a few of the highlights…
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No dress code — "Business casual" is too formal.
Café Viewzi — Team lunch every Friday at noon.
Viewzi is also cool about giving outsiders a glimpse into our process. From time to time, we post video updates to Viewzi.tv, such as the following explanation by Stephen P. Anderson about the "wall of wonder," the giant cork-board used to track all proposed, in-progress and completed search views. As you can see from the brief film, we don't take ourselves too seriously at Viewzi, but still manage to get a lot accomplished.
Anyway, that about wraps it up. Expect to see future blog posts about my new adventures at Viewzi. One more thing… If an engaging environment working with smart people on cutting-edge stuff is your cup of tea: We're hiring.