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Google's new toys

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the they-are-excellent! dept.

Google labs just released for your pleasure, some new toys to play with. The first is Google's Viewer, just type a few words to see a fully working preview of the web site. Another new idea: Google's Webquotes, View search results with quotes about them from other sites, and the last one is Google's Froogle, which aims to be the world's largest catalog.

47 of 268 comments (clear)

  1. that's pretty neat.. by doubleyewdee · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It seems like google is never content to rest on its laurels. Unlike some of the goneby search engines of the past it seems to be interested in doing more than pimping out its popularity to commercial interests at the cost of its quality. Hopefully they'll continue on this track for a long time to come. None of this stuff is revolutionary, but it does seem to be at least nifty. And that's all google needs at this point.

    --


    you can take the road that takes you to the stars...
    1. Re:that's pretty neat.. by juhaz · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Useful extra functionality sure as hells is everything but detrimental. If you don't like 'em, don't use em. But don't whine, they are not even linked on the main page. You wouldn't even KNOW about them if you don't specifically look for them in the beta pages, or see them in slashdot.

      Nobody is adding bells and whistles to your basic hammer, but the company that manufactures hammers, also does some other tools. You can buy them if you like, if you don't, well, no harm done. Stop whining.

      Google may well be one of the things best kept simple. Point is, Google, the search engine is as simple as it has always been.

    2. Re:that's pretty neat.. by mobets · · Score: 4, Informative

      It already does this. Click on the preferences link. The last option is exactly what you ask for. Make sure you are accepting cookies from google and click save.

      --

      It was me, I did it, I moved your cheese
    3. Re:that's pretty neat.. by egreB · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well, since we're on to knitpicking..

      The physics involved in the action of hammering a nail into something (e.g. wood), is quite complex. But you've got a nice and fairly easy interface to it with your hammer, thus you don't need to know much physics.

    4. Re:that's pretty neat.. by Steveftoth · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You are the reason that computers are so hard to use.

      Google's interface is so easy that it HURTS. Yes it hurts. and that's the way that it should stay.

      Once you go down the dark dark path of adding 'a button here' 'a button there' you will never return from that. Google has boiled down all the complexity all the redundant controls down to a simple text box and 2 buttons. There are advanced controls for those people who use it enough to want to do that. It only takes a couple of seconds to change your prefs, and if you are on a public computer, why can't you hold down the shift key (or right click).

    5. Re:that's pretty neat.. by SomeoneGotMyNick · · Score: 3, Funny

      All they need to do is voice activate the thing, then I can do my Data impression

      Faster....

      Faster....

      Move to maximum speed....

  2. Prelim results by gowen · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I've been playing with these since they appeared on The Register a few days ago. I can't say I'm massively impressed. The slideshow is lovely eye candy, but, sadly, the top bit of each web page it shows is all too often just a banner ad and a navbar, which isn't always a lot of use. Froogle is US-centric, and no good for me, but it is the best name I've seen in a long time.

    --
    Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
    1. Re:Prelim results by Ed+Avis · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Heh, perhaps the Google slideshow will encourage sites to put useful information at the top of pages rather than junk.

      --
      -- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
    2. Re:Prelim results by aridhol · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I'd love to see DoubleClick's database after this has been running for a while.

      --
      I can't say that I don't give a fuck. I've just run out of fuck to give.
    3. Re:Prelim results by harmonica · · Score: 3, Informative

      I doubt it. It's long known that title and h1 elements are very important for Google (and recently, more and more of its competitors). Still, people often put nothing in those two HTML elements, or crap, or leave predefined values in there (like Untitled1). These people never seem to check if their own pages are in a search engine and what a query result on their pages looks like.

      A lot of people just don't know or care about good webauthoring.

  3. In case the site is slashdotted... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    http://192.17... oh wait!

    (someone had to do it :)

    1. Re:In case the site is slashdotted... by nolife · · Score: 5, Interesting

      To clarify the phrase..

      Slashdotted

      Yet another interesting Google function.

      --
      Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
  4. Let's try this one again in English by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Google labs just released some new toys for your pleasure. The first is Google's Viewer -- just type a few words to see a fully working preview of the web site. Another new idea: Google's Webquotes -- View search results with quotes about them from other sites. The last one is Google's Froogle, which aims to be the world's largest catalog.

    Now compare that to what actually got posted above.

  5. Google contest ideas? by Christopher+Doopov · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Are these new features based on ideas from the Google contest, which took place some time ago? If so, what are the other ideas, which are not yet implemented, but which may be used in the future?

    --

    ~Christopher Doopov

    1. Re:Google contest ideas? by crapulent · · Score: 5, Informative

      No, I don't think this has anything to do with the Google programming contest. The winner and honorable mentions are listed on this page, and they have nothing really to do with the Google labs features announced recently. You can also read slashdot's coverage of the announcement as well as the announcement of the winners if you're interested.

    2. Re:Google contest ideas? by WatertonMan · · Score: 3, Interesting
      None of them sound like entries in the Google contest. The only entry from the contest that sounded like it had relevance to business was the one that tied geographic maps to web searches. I was actually surprised they didn't implement that one.

      There are a few ideas that I'd like to see Google ad, but these are interesting, if mostly proof of concepts. Froogle in particular is a good idea but doesn't allow price comparisons like MySimon does. Were they to add that it would be considerably more useful. Further it oddly seems to leave out a lot of stores, I noticed.

      The web annotation tool is also a good idea. But I have a feeling that it needs to be better integrated with the google bar. (BTW - when is a Mac version coming?) Annotation has been discussed for quite a while. I have a wrox book at home on XML Metadata that discusses a lot of this. Unfortunately in practice it has never been applied to the general web.

      There are lots of features of the original hypertext research in the 60's that are yet to be applied to the web. Google utilizes some concepts for its ranking, such as "links to" information. Wouldn't it be great to have a Google bar monitoriing your pages and make suggestings for helpful pages that link to the page you are on? There are many ideas like that which would improve ones browsing experience.

      There are a few privacy concerns, but I'm exciting that Google offers these tests. The news site has become my favorite site on the web. It tends to get better stories than the other meta-news site I used to visit: DrudgeReport.com

    3. Re:Google contest ideas? by mhesseltine · · Score: 4, Interesting

      About the mapping of searches to geographic data. There was a recent NYT article that went inside Google Labs, and in the lab, they have just that sort of thing. There's a 3-d world representation, and searches through an IP are mapped to the location of that IP. Search volume creates a color-changing peak that rises from the location. Larger volume creates a higher peak. It ends up looking like certain major cities are on fire.

      I'd dredge up the /. article on it, but the /. search sucks.

      --
      Overrated / Underrated : Moderation :: Anonymous Coward : Posting
  6. Other interesting articles by nich37ways · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Ars technica also has review up of froogle along with a funny review of google's plan for world domination

    --

    nich

    --
    37 - what does it stand for really...
  7. What about the other ones? by John_Renne · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Off course all these playground-features are nice but when will anything become standard. Other beta-stuff like Google Glossary and Google Sets looked very nice but both are still in beta. Google will remain my favourite search-engine but they in my opinion they could be a bit faster in offering new services.

    --
    /(bb|[^b]{2})/
    1. Re:What about the other ones? by platypus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I could imagine "beta" testing means beta testing attractiveness to customers. I.e. if one of the "beta" sides gets a lot of hits, google decide to put it out of beta.

      Google will remain my favourite search-engine but they in my opinion they could be a bit faster in offering new services.

      You are joking, right? If not, who is better in that game than google? Two or three years ago, nearly each of the ideas which google has already implemented in their "labs" could have gained a shitload of venture capital in order to implement it.
      Google not fast? I think not.

    2. Re:What about the other ones? by PurpleFloyd · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Other beta-stuff like Google Glossary and Google Sets looked very nice but both are still in beta.
      This is much more likely to be rolled out, as it is a goldmine for advertising. While the Glossary and Sets programs are nice, there's no real way to sell adwords on them. Froogle adwords, on the other hand, could likely command a premium price and thus it would make good business sense to roll out Froogle as soon as possible.
      --

      That's it. I'm no longer part of Team Sanity.
    3. Re:What about the other ones? by Galvatron · · Score: 5, Interesting

      No, I think beta testing means exactly what it implies, the software is not release quality yet. At the moment, they probably don't feel like the sorting algorithm they use is "fair," and so they're still finetuning it. Clearly, this can be a lengthy process, which is why they let people use it while they're still working on it. All they're saying by "beta" is that it's not good enough to stake their reputation on, so if you use it, be aware that they think it's not up to the same standard as the rest of their work yet.

      --
      "The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
    4. Re:What about the other ones? by e40 · · Score: 3, Informative

      No, Platypus was right. Peter Norvig, Director of Search Quality at Google, said in a talk that things on labs.google.com may never see final release. It is a test ground, in all senses of the phrase (test the software, test how people like it, etc).

  8. Google is coogle by capitalsucks · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I think google is the only site that I hit at least 10x per day that doesnt have banner ads or popups. They have those things on the right of the page, but not only are those well priced for the advertiser (lik 1 penny per click) but they are also effective because they come up in a search. If the entire internet STILL had to have ads in my utopia, this is how I would prefer them.

    --
    "I feel it is my duty to look at the porn that kids download before I delete it, to be sure what it is."--School Admin
  9. The universal knowledge repository by katalyst · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Google has access to so much information. A study of human behavior and interests can be made by just parking yourself at the Google HQ, where apparantly, they have lotsa screens which keep displaying the kinda stuff people are looking for. Beats trainspotting ;)
    Another google toy : it's fun to use. The Google Mirror. It's a blast, you actually gotta enter your query the other way around, coz it's a MIRROR silly !!

    --
    |/________
    |\A|ALYS|
  10. Re:Froogle is great by doubleyewdee · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yeah, I just gave it a shot looking for a very particular piece of jewelry and I found it within about three minutes. I was really impressed. Even better, Froogle is in beta! If it already works this will as a beta product I can only imagine how great it will be when it has been rolled out.

    I wonder if, given that Froogle could become quite popular, this will make it easier for small independent web-vendors to compete against giants like Amazon. One of the things I do like about Amazon is that it's pretty easy to find what I'm looking for, and they have lots of stuff (shady business/patent practices aside). However, if Froogle makes it this easy for me to find stuff from multiple small vendors then I might just stick with that.

    --


    you can take the road that takes you to the stars...
  11. confused by webquotes? by Sarin · · Score: 3

    I did some searches with no luck, then I searched for Slashdot
    and it got plenty!

  12. Re:The mandatory pr0n reference by leoboiko · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It would be even better if they made an equivalent viewer for images.google.com.

    --
    Prescriptive grammar:linguistics :: alchemy:chemistry. Stop being a nazi and learn some science.
  13. This is useless by kraf · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Quotes ? Previews ?
    Quite useless if you ask me.

    What I would like to see is the google equivalent of metaspy. The zeitgeist thing is nice, but I don't care for most categories.
    I guess they see their query database as a valuable marketing resource, but then how come they are not selling access to it ?

  14. Googlisms by SPeW · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Hey have any of you checked out this site , not directly related to google.com but it does use their search results to return some pretty intereting stuff. check it out ... some funny stuff comes up for slashdot and Bill Gates

    --
    MoRe... LaTeR... -=PJK=-
  15. Google is God. by jericho4.0 · · Score: 3, Informative
    I know I'm not saying anything new to this thread, but I have to say it.

    Google defines 'best practice'. Google is the best thing on the web, bar none. Google, my friends, is God.

    --
    "A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
  16. Good, Better, Best! by coloth · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The Viewer I'd rate "good", because it shows a path to potential interface improvements in the future, but not something I'd use today.

    The WebQuotes is "better" because it leverages the architecture that Google is based on, and lets you see some of the reasons why that link is near the top.

    But the Froogle service is clearly the "best". It has the potential to centralize the Internet's consumer marketplaces, enhancing competition and value. My only concern is that the big retailers will put up walls to Froogle's spiders. However, if Froogle becomes popular, they may be forced to join the party, or lose access to a growing meta-internet market.

    Ladies and gentlemen, Google is reminding us that we live in exciting times.

    --

    Machines take me by surprise with great frequency. -A. Turing

    1. Re:Good, Better, Best! by Alien+Being · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Pricewatch still has an advantage over Froogle in that it shows products sorted by (price + S&H).

      I hope Google leapfrogs pricewatch by adding not only "shipped price", but also "ETA". I want it cheap, but I also want it ASAP.

  17. Britney's Guide to Semiconductor Physics by rednaxel · · Score: 5, Funny
    When I tried search for webquotes about Britney Spears, the following site appeared:

    Britney's Guide to Semiconductor Physics

    From the site:

    "It is a little known fact, that Ms Spears is an expert in semiconductor physics. Not content with just singing and acting, in the following pages, she will guide you in the fundamentals of the vital laser components that have made it possible to hear her super music in a digital format."

    P.S. Checkout the author's page as well...

    I wish I had a sig.

    --
    If you can read this, thank an english teacher.
  18. Re:Slashdot Japan by pseudogratixsignatus · · Score: 3, Informative

    Yeah, it (/. Japan) is official. It started about a year and a half ago (May 28, 2001).

  19. The viewer doesn't work perfectly with CSS by pointwood · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Just look at at site that uses CSS instead of tables. The site is perfectly readable, but the design is gone.

  20. Re:Prelim results: Viewer! by gowen · · Score: 3, Funny
    I searched for my own name,
    I searched for my name, and all I got was the top of a lot of /. comment pages... :(
    --
    Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
  21. Mozilla by n-baxley · · Score: 3, Informative

    At least this works on Mozilla unlike the Google toolbar provided by Google. (I know there's a third party version). I hope this is a sign of things to come.

    --

    THIS SPACE FOR RENT
  22. The Tao of Google by Derleth · · Score: 3, Informative
    Well, what if kerosune is a company name and I really did want to search on that and avoid kerosene? It's one thing to offer a different spelling, its another to up and change
    Semi-valid, but Google does say that the term returned no results and that it took the liberty of finding a close relative that matches something. Most people enjoy this, although I must admit it surprised me the first time I saw it. (More on this later.)
    Even when you don't get these kind of messages, the results are for the individual words, not the phrase.
    I'll have to verify this, but I know it was partially true a long time ago (in Google terms). Google has made its phrase-searching behavior a lot more intelligent than when I started using it (including stopwords without needing plus signs to force them, not seperating logical words for special processing, etc.), and you may well be complaining about old behavior.

    You want to know what my big beef with Google is? Lack of documentation. Lack of an easily-findable page that details what certain things do, and how the team has changed Google's behavior recently. Google also under-advertises its world-accessable beta features. I could have been using Google News, now a staple of my news-finding experience, long before I heard about it on a message board.

    Google is the master of clean, intelligent page design. It should be able to unobtrusively work in a link to a page describing advanced functionality and beta features right on its main page. It annoys and amazes me that Google doesn't more actively tout that it is the only group paving new roads in using the Internet.
    --
    How can you use my intestines as a gift? -Actual Hong Kong subtitle.
  23. Newsweek Article This Week by Runny · · Score: 3, Informative

    Google is featured in this week's Newsweek. You can find an online version of the Google article here.

  24. Where's the revenue model? by DABANSHEE · · Score: 5, Funny

    IE when does the credit card/Adult verification/ActiveX home dialer funded porn-Google (poogle?) turn up?

  25. For those who haven't gone exploring.... by Frosty+Inc. · · Score: 3, Informative

    Google has so much more than just their search engine. For a list of other Google goodies, see Google Services & Tools.

    Also, there are several more things that Google Labs has already released here. I had fun with the Google Sets...it's a different way to search, but it brings up useful results that you might not have thought of.

    --


    Move along...nothing to see here.
  26. Google Sets by dmomo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Google sets lets you enter a few items. Then it displays "like" items. If you want a list of publishers, enter a few.

    I tried the following: ultima online, heroin, everquest, crack
    And got:

    Crack
    EverQuest
    Ultima Online
    Heroin
    Asheron's Call
    Diablo
    Starcraft
    Interstate
    Quake
    Anarch y Online
    Cocaine
    Marijuana
    The Realm
    Amphetamines
    Alcohol
    Baldur's Gate
    Shadowbane
    Summary
    Ecstasy
    LSD
    Jane's USAF

  27. Google not a portal? Yeah, right. by BornInASmallTown · · Score: 5, Insightful
    When Google News came out, I realized something: Google is trying to be a portal without being a portal, and by doing this, they are going to own the web.

    Google has long said that they have no desire to enter the portal market to compete with the likes of Yahoo!. ("No, our customers are portals like Yahoo! and AOL. We're not a portal...we are just trying to be the best search engine.") While it is true that they are the best search engine, they are using characteristics of search to become a stealth portal.

    Consider the following tools available from google and their counterparts on Yahoo!:
    • Search engine (cf. google.yahoo.com)
    • Directory (cf. www.yahoo.com)
    • People search (cf. people.yahoo.com)
    • Address search (cf. maps.yahoo.com)
    • Froogle directory (cf. shopping.yahoo.com)
    • News (cf. news.yahoo.com)
    • Stock quotes (cf. quote.yahoo.com)


    There are more analogs between the two sites. But here's the thing: Google offers a value proposition over sites like Yahoo: Much more content and much lower overhead. Why? Because Google, as a "search engine" is simply here to Help People Find What They're Looking For. They will point us to other sites after we see our search results---it's just that our search results happen to look like tradiitonal portal pages. (In other words, news.google.com is a drop in replacement for CNN.com, only google's site is better because it contains fewer ads, less clutter, and much, much, more news.)

    I think it is an interesting concept. One other poster said they thought Froogle could put Amazon out of business. In the near term--no. Longer term--yes. And this is because Google's value proposition to the user is better: I would bet money that when Froogle becomes a "release" and not just a "beta", that it has the ability to classify similar products from multiple vendors and search for the one that's the cheapest. If I can find the same books and electronics on Google that I can on Amazon, why would I go to Amazon?

    Google is going to preach the "non portal" doctrine forever, however over the next 3-5 years, we will see the Google "portal" owning the web, at the expense of the Yahoo's, Amazon's, Ebay's, and CNN's of the world. This means that ad revenue on other sites will become ad revenue for Google.

    Maybe this is a conspiracy theory, but I have to say that I like the way Google works, I like their site, and I'd like to see them succeed in this...they've certainly made my web searching more useful, and I'd like to see them do the same for the other tools I use in traditional portals.
  28. If froogle were out sooner by phorm · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's really too bad that nobody saw this beta until now. It would have been a very nice and useful tool for Christmas shopping. Somewhat like ebay, but a way like finding what you want from retailers.

    Online shopping is kicking up. This will be a great tool for shoppers and retailers, so long as it doesn't get hacked or biased towards certain retailers.

  29. I've always enjoyed these Google toys by slagdogg · · Score: 3, Informative

    My favorite is Google Sets. I use it to look for new musical artists. For example, if I type in a few band names in a similar genre that I like it returns a list containing other similar bands. If there's a name there I don't recognize, I dig up their music and usually it's pretty good.

    --
    (Score:-1, Wrong)
  30. Reputation over popularity by kindofblue · · Score: 3, Insightful
    I think you are being over-optimistic. Google or any other search engine is NOT going to replace most of the sites you mentioned. It seems to me that you are relying on at least 2 major assumptions:

    (1) Cheaper will always win.
    (2) More info is always better.

    But in both shopping and in information, for me at least, trust and reputation matters a lot. For shopping, I'll spend a few bucks more by getting something from Amazon, or Dell, or Apple, or Toyota, because I've been screwed by getting cheaper alternatives. My time and lack of aggravation matter a lot more to me. I'm very wary of trying new brands, especially for anything online.

    As for information, reputation and editors matter a lot. Google and any other sort of collaborative filtering depend primarily on mass voting or popularity; but credibility is a nuanced thing. Many national online newspapers might be highly ranked according to Google, but when I see a news headline, I want to know what the point-of-view of the news source is, and not just that it is popular. After all, if popularity mattered above all, Britney Spears would be winning all the Grammys, and Jerry Springer would be winning the Emmys.

    I use Google news all the time, but I find that it gives a lot of very obscure news sites. Even Slashdot appears in the headlines, and Slashdot is very highly biased opinion and discussion, NOT news. Basically I use Google news to find and scan for headlines, but invariably I only spend my time on a few trusted news sources. For any other unknown site, I always have to check out the site to determine their bias and credibility. I don't have the spare cognitive cycles to waste on sites that are spinning an unknown agenda.

    Basically my point is that news site quality and merchant reputation matter a great deal, and portals like Yahoo or pseudo-portals Google still rely on the human-directed quality control. They are an important part of an information eco-system, as aggregators or popularity filters, but they are not the gatekeepers or the final word.