Search engine seeks MP3

A search engine company has launched a specialty engine dedicated to the world of MP3, dubbed MP3meta.

The so-called meta-search engine integrates MP3 (MPEG 1, Audio Layer 3) results from eight sources. It relies on technology from SavvySearch, which was incorporated last June.

MP3 is an audio compression format that allows users to download music tracks and save them onto a PC hard drive or a portable MP3 player. Due to its popularity among Netizens, the format has become what some consider a de facto standard for music downloads.

The "MP3meta" domain name is registered to SavvySearch of Wellesley, Massachusetts. SavvySearch originated in 1995, based on the efforts of a computer science graduate student at Colorado State University named Daniel Dreilinger and his colleagues. SavvySearch has other specialty search engines, such as ones dedicated to children, horoscopes, travel, health, and movies.

As for MP3meta, it "sends your query to several other search engines and integrates the results into a standardized format, removing duplicates and adjusting the ranking for optimal relevance," according to the search engine's site. The search includes Astraweb, mIRC-X, MP3.com, Oth.net, Audiofind, Lycos MP3 Search, MediaFind, 2Look4.com, according to SavvySearch.

For example, the word "news" leads to results such as "Newsville Evans," "Huey Lewis and the News," and "Newsty."

MP3meta warns users, however, that MP3 searches on "any search engine often result in broken links." It also warns them that many such searches result in an Internet "busy signal."