Factbrowser

The Research Discovery Engine I stumbled across this search engine when I was looking for some internet statistics. I'm not entirely sure what to make of it to be honest, because it looks quite interesting (and I certainly found it helpful), but the links to the 'About' and 'FAQ' pages are broken, and the last blog entry is quite some time ago. However, the facts themselves come from various reputable sources.

You can simply pop in your search term and see what it returns for you. The results that are returned give the fact, the source, when the fact was added and from where and when it was originally published, together with some keywords. Alternatively you can search by subject, such as broad categories like 'Internet' or more specifically, facts about something particular, such as students or Facebook. It's aimed very much at technology and consumer based information. Very irritatingly however, it doesn't link back to the original source, so it requires a secondary hunt on the facts website to find it.

So, a combination of really helpful and very irritating. But since I'm on a facts website, I can't leave without providing you with one, so here's your fact: "The iPad has over 90% of the tablet market in the UK (93.1%), Australia (93.2%), Ireland (90.2%), New Zealand (90.6%), Sweden (91.2%), Norway (92.7%), Denmark (95.0%), Iceland (93.6%), and Switzerland (91.7%)"

Comments

[Keith Anderson]

Phil,

Many thanks for visiting our site and posting about it. Glad you found the site helpful and sorry you found it irritating!

I did want to clarify that we absolutely do link to original sources. In fact, unethical / unhelpful linking practices on similar sites is partly why we launched the site.

We posted "the anatomy of a fact on Factbrowser" last year to help people interpret what they're looking at.

http://blog.factbrowser.com/2012/05/14/guide-to-factbrowser-your-new-secret-weapon/

Worth a look if you're finding yourself frustrated / confused on the site.

Thanks again for the feedback!

Best,
Keith
Founder, Factbrowser.com