Rollyo Lets You Roll Your Own SearchesRollyo Lets You Roll Your Own Searches

Rollyo.com debuts a new search service that allows users to keep a list of up to 25 favorite Web sites and constrain search queries to those specific sites.

The service, which officially launches at the 2005 Web 2.0 Conference next week, lets users save their lists of favorite Web sites -- called "searchrolls" -- for personal use, or to share with the world.

Searchrolls offers a simple but effective way to reduce the volume of results returned by a given keyword query. They're particularly useful for building your own vertical or topical search engine. Because Rollyo relies on Yahoo Search for its data, it can be thought of as a way to customize Yahoo queries.

What makes Rollyo noteworthy is that it adds a social component to search by allowing you to share your searchrolls with the Internet community. You could, for example, create a list of news sites that reflect your personal political biases, in order to read what you already believe. You could then share that list to foist your worldview on others. Or you might simply want others to know about some interesting sites.

The site touts its celebrity connections. "Rollyo launches with a several high-profile High Rollers: Debra Messing, Arianna Huffington, Rosario Dawson, Brian Greene, Diane Von Furstenberg, our friends at PBS Frontline, and many top bloggers have all rolled custom search engines," the site says. "You can be a High Roller, too, if your searchroll becomes popular with the Rollyo community. Think of it as our version of Star Search."