Slashdot Mirror
Google Adds Location Targeted Searching
miradu writes "Many Slashdot users may remember that the winner of last year's Google programming contest's entry was a location specific search. Now, Google has made a version of Daniel's idea available to use on Google Labs. Google Search By Location lets you search for things near some zipcode, or city/state. It then gives you a map with each search result pinned on it. V"
On the other side of things, Google stands to make a killing here. Google can sell a new class of ads to people like plumbers, who don't need a webpage. In fact, they could possibly host a minimal web page for those kind of advertisers who just want to show some simple text and services.
Hey, perhaps Google wants to give me some kind of idea fee???
Newsfollow.com
How come when I search for the location of "Hot single geek chicks" there are no results found?
Donuts
But wouldnt be cool to see this applyed to
more then just the US?
With all the talk about Google being
'The' serch engine, id love to see
something like this applyed on a
world wide base.
mind you not knowing how it works
it may require ppl to put decent
contact info on there pages,
ie country name.
You have 5 Moderator Points!
Which Helpless Linux zealot/MS basher do you want to mod down today?
It's a great idea but the heuristics need work:
"Your search for money grubbing scumbags near Lindon, UT did not match any documents within 15 miles."
Trolling is a art,
Server Error
The server encountered a temporary error and could not complete your request.
Please try again in a minute or so.
Does anyone have a link to the google cache of this page?
er.... nevermind...
Why is it so hot? Where am I going? What am I doing in this handbasket?
We're actually Slashdotting Google.
Stop. Stop
From the end of the article: "V" ????...
When /. brings a Google server to its knees!
I was searching for a non-slashdotted version near me when it borked.
The opposite of progress is congress
At first, I thought this was going to function by mapping the web server IP address to a geological location. This is much better. It is a logical extension from the feature where Google gives you street addresses when you search on business, etc. This could be really useful for finding local clubs and organizations that share a common interest.
Phoenix
Once GPS becames much more universal, it would be great for us all to move to latitude and longitude. That's a truly international standard.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
Most popular search will certainly be...
Babes | Chicks | Hot Teens | Nude | Sexy
It'd be nice if it worked though. The two main things I tried to look up by my zip code came up with nothing but a fat server error.
Both Hotels and Restaurants plus my zip code don't function, Schools doesn't work....
Just typing in my town name and searching in my zip code works just fine, but I think they have a few kinks to work out before this is even moderatley useful.
Would it be more effective for a small business that depends on local business (such as a house roofing or a plumbing company) to have a business name and a website that includes the name of the city? For example, "www.dallasplumbing.com" or www.dallas-plumbing.com? Which would be better at getting higher up in the google query? It would seem that with this IP location factor in the query that maybe such a URL scheme would be effective? Your opinions, please.....
eat shiat and bark at the moon
You should have typed "Washington, DC" for your location.
C:\>
or, using google-patriot act search, type in a person's name, and you get all the secret cameras in their home, their entire geneology, pictures from their past, and other weird things that only the conspiracy theorists know...
Or, even better, using google for moms, a google that scans the computer for cookies to find out what site her kid has been visiting via a cookie scan or something.
I dunno, but eventually it's going to seem like an invasion of privacy with these search engines, but then again, once you put something online without any protection, it *is* public domain.
How is this different from Yahoo Yellow Pages ( http://yp.yahoo.com )? I've been using that service for half a decade. It searches by zipcode / address as well.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
goats near Christmas Island is too disturbing for me.
That sure didn't take long.
I wonder if it's because the feature needs performance tuning, or if it simply hasn't been deployed to handle a Slashdotting's worth of load yet.
Either way, I'm sure it'll be a learning experience for the project team.
Given Google's amazing general search capability, though, I won't be prepared to call this new Location feature a comparable success until I can search for "winning lottery ticket" near my zip code and get driving directions...
Xentax
You shouldn't verb words.
What google is censoring. Knowing that any DMCA 'request' Google deletes any record from them being.. How do we trust them?
They've showed that they have no regard for true searchfulness as they cut out Kazaa Lite, Clambake, many parts of scientology debunking. What else do they cut out that we dont know?
I have at least 8 search engines that I use constantly. And slowly, google is lowering itself in my eyes.
Google seems to be suffering from feature overload of late.
Why is this more useful than just going to yellowpages.com, and maybe mapquest if I need directions?
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Here's what Google values, from their Job Opportunities [google.com] page:What intrigues me personally is that this contest took place in an online collaborative environment. Does this mean that Google is considering opening up to remote working -- as in, I can live in Dallas and "work" in the Googleplex? As much as I'd love to work at a place like Google, there's no way I'm moving to California.
labs.google.com is slashdotted, not google.com.
Is the point here that it also searches for each bookstore's website? Doesn't seem like a huge extension. What am I missing?
I was the guy standing in line behind you.
You could have at least cleaned up a bit after you were done.
That would be a trip.
I tried the search and it failed on my quite a few times, but the potential is huge. The first thing that came to my mind was real estate.
I've gone out looking for land with realtors that can't even find the lots they're supposed to be showing, and look how much they take in transaction fees for their "service." It' not like they do the Escrow themselves. I suppose it's a bit different for houses, but for land sales they act like they're doing you a favor.
Not only that, but I've gone in with aerial photos and maps from the County that all come off of county maintained computer databases and the realtors inevitably insist their little hand drawn map that doesn't even accurately map the parcels is the more accurate solution.
This could be the beginning of something huge for Google.
260,000 of us might find it interesting :)
http://www.georgyforgov.com
I am not one of the few dozen humans to ever leave our atmosphere, therefore space travel is not interesting. Just because you don't get personal benefit from it doesn't mean it is not interesting or news-worthy.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
How many posts are going to say "OMG we slashdotted google." This clearly is not running on there huge cluster. Its probably just a single server or something. Settle down, pigs are not flying.
Scott
Here in the UK, you can use Multimap to acheive something close to this.
Multimap's main use is simple as an online map, and it's used heavily here in the UK, but they do show pin-marks on the location of any services they know about.
They only show links to certain categories of service (hotels, and the like), but limited though it is, the search by location service has been available for some time.
(Spudley Strikes Again!)
Bizarre.
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
I wonder how they will be enforcing the zip code registration. The main drive behind google and the page rank thing was to take search engine optimization off the page and out of the hands of the web master so as to avoid keyword stuffing and not-quite-honest optimization techniques.
But it seems sort of hard to determine the "location" of a website without input from the people behind the site. There are possibilities for abuse.
But maybe there's no incentive to be listed in the wrong zip code... well, maybe there is.
If you do a lot of business on the web or by mail, and your physical location doesn't matter, you might post 100 versions of your site, each with the zip code of a large metropolitan area. But then how many people would do that?
Ah hell, I don't know. I'm rambling...
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
Great, now its been slashdotted. Way to go people.
Server Error
The server encountered a temporary error and could not complete your request.
Please try again in a minute or so.
Google Labs - Search by Location FAQ - Terms of Use
This map is informational only and user assumes all risk of use. MapQuest and its suppliers assume
no responsibility for any losses or delays resulting from any such use.
Use subject to license and copyright
(C)2003 Google
I hate all sigs, even this one.
The results returned by this thing seem to be fairly irrelevant.
When searching for 'food' with my office location I received the following results;
-Food allergy and intolerances, fact sheet
-Oriental grocery stores list for my area
-Sources of free or low cost
-Food science publications & journals
-Thoughts on Food Safety
-History of Hannakuh foods
-Oriental grocery stores list (again)
-foodandwine.com's best new chefs list
Admittedly, 'food' is a pretty lame search, but I would've hoped to see a couple restaurants and grocery stores in the list.
Did you think it was like this? IP Address Locator
It's a nice idea in many respects but as a few people have posted, how is it really innovative?
Here in the UK I've been using www.upmystreet.com, with which - based on a poscode that can usually locate an individual property - one can find businesses based on location, local representation, council performance, maps and all sorts of other information and even discussions based on location of user. It's a great idea and extremely well implemented and - which it might not be as elegant as searching the entire internet for web pages - is genuinely useful and adds hugely to what's possible through the yellow pages.
Try "Google LBS Server" as address and you should get a picture of a dust cloud which once has been just that server... ;)
Yahoo has had this capability for months. I was excited about it at first but a) I never do anything in this town and b) I'm lazy and always type my searches into Mozilla's address bar... so I always use google. Which is funny, cuz I think Google sucks!
Oh, and it's still slashdotted at 10:05... har har har...
Personally I think that the superpages.com map based search is the best thing since sliced bread, I use it extensively to find businesses near me. The google search and the superpages search are different attacks at the same problem, I think that they complement each other well, but the superpages search is likely to turn up more information..
Superpages map search
(yes, I am joking)
The only thing more dangerous than a file named -rf is renaming it -rf\ /
yeah, i had this same question. i mean, by definition it's looking for exactly the same sort of brinck and mortar places that have been in the phone book for ever. so, what would this have that the yahoo yellow pages doesn't?
Here's a (hopefully) non-slashdotted site that does the same thing although it only works in San Diego. SDcommunities.net
I got the latitude and longitude data from the Census for zip codes and created a HUGE reference tables for the distances between zip codes. Lots of math in the search code.
What if Digg added local news and a Slashdot inspired comment karma system? ---
http://houndwire.com
it doesn't know where saddam is either.
ph
Oh my god, you slashdotted Google!
You bastards!
http://www.superpages.com/ came out with mapbased search that uses an Applet a while back. And for those who remember Mapquest use to offer a similar feature back in the 90's. Google is a little late to the game. The application itself isn't all that hard to build. The real trick is providing a way for listees to correct the gps coordinates. For those familiar with GIS, that is the biggest problems. To my knowledge, VeriZon offers that capability to listees. You can easily test the accuracy of Goecodes by doing a search for the same address in mapquest, yahoo, and mappoint. You'll see the coordinates are not identical. Not only that, but each system uses a different level of precision. Only the military uses full precision, but then again they have to.
How come I get hundreds of documents when I search for "Weapons of mass destruction" in Washington DC?
Oh wait, maybe an international version of this location-search is what the intelligence agencies have been using for finding WMD in Iraq. ;)
How is this different from Yahoo Yellow Pages?
Um, quite a bit of difference, theoretically. How about searching for parks, lakes, fire hydrants, mailboxes, phone booths, one-way streets, registered sex offenders, gullible people, etc.
That's a great way to spend effort. I'm glad Google is concentrating on that rather than on making their search engine usable once again.
The day they figure out a way to stop the keyword spammers will be a very, very good day for the Internet as a whole. Location targetted searching... er.. yawn.. any business out there that wants us to visit already has their city on their website anyways.
There are a couple of wireless companies that do location based searches based on handset GPS coordinates. I worked on a location search application a long time ago using smart phones. It's not new. We even had a webpage that allowed you to track where the user was.
Slashdot seems to be very pro-Google, and I admit to using their search the majority of the time as well, but everyone should at least take a glance at google watch. Of most interest is the privacy section. If any other site were to track the stuff Google does, /. would be up in arms protesting.
"Google currently does not allow outsiders to gain access to raw data because of privacy concerns. Searches are logged by time of day, originating I.P. address (information that can be used to link searches to a specific computer), and the sites on which the user clicked. People tell things to search engines that they would never talk about publicly -- Viagra, pregnancy scares, fraud, face lifts. What is interesting in the aggregate can seem an invasion of privacy if narrowed to an individual."
Please note, this isn't a troll, and I'm not wearing a tin-foil hat (maybe I should?). Imagine the following scenario: a bomb goes off in the US. By tracing searches for "anarchist cookbook" to zipcodes within the area of the bomb blast, the FBI could have access to information that makes TIA look like a better alternative.
Maybe this isn't such a good feature after all...
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
...they linked to the subpoena stating that they couldn't link to said site. Which is about as much as I'd expect them to do. At least you know they're being censored, and can dispute it. I really don't expect Google as a business to get involved in a long and costly lawsuit over the legality of linking. Particularly when the "censoring" only makes it more interesting and popular, and they can laugh at whoever tried to censor it in the first place...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
So the unstoppable force won against the unmovable object... This google feature has been slashdotted.
There are two kinds of people in the world: Those with good memory.
.. in my area that all the spam promises to me :-)
Wiktor
it doesn't know where saddam is either...
ph
I searched for unlaid, unwashed geeks sitting in darkened rooms in the middle of the day bathed only in the light from an LCD while posting to Slashdot anonymously and it fired up the quickcam sitting on top of my monitor and automatically made a picture of me the desktop background image.
Check out www.smartpages.com
It is an online yellow pages. Each listed company has a small 'web-page' that provides a link to the actual external web-page, if available, as well as a mapquest map, address and main contact phone number.
I use that site ALL the time looking up potential service vendors for the company I work for.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
This is a direct paste of comment #6986714 attached
to the article on the Google Jam contest (search
for page keyword GooglePlex). I would've posted
a direct link, but due to a combination of unfortunate factors,
I'm stuck to lynx for today.
After a lot of trying, you've finally slashdotted Google! lol
I keep getting server errors when I try searching for things like donuts or my own webpage. Either that, or it thinks Irving,TX is a black hole. Hmm, don't answer that.
RB
You should probably change the location to something other than "my parent's basement".
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
After putting up with a year of a roommate obsessed with her, I don't think I could ever be friends with anyone that likes her.
Wait...there's something outside the US? ;)
I mean, beyond the 10K he made in the contest. Did Google give him a job? Or did they basically get this great idea (and a lot of others) for the low-low price of $10,000?
If Google can entice enough people into registering for some cool new service, Google will be able to connect your identity to your searches and your surfing habits. No need for TIA.
And by the way, it's only a matter of time before you can type in a person's name and find their location.
"Searches are logged by time of day, originating I.P. address (information that can be used to link searches to a specific computer), and the sites on which the user clicked."
Incredible! Their webservers have logfiles, you say? I'm very concerned.
Google is a wimp compared to the power of ./!!
Translation from Portuguese:
Yes, it might be useful in other countries, if said countries had a public ZIP code database as good as the American one. Anyway, it's interesting to me: I live in Colorado, USA.
Note that even though they took down the Kazaa Lite search listing they still found a subversive way to pass the url along.
I wouldn't call it subversive - just enter "Kazaa Lite" into Google's search box, and hit the button. KazaaLite's main site comes up as the first hit! :-)
Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr - looking for something to read? Check out my three free novels at MidnightRyder.org
Google, making identity theft and stalking easier for you, one day at a time....
Taken from http://www.couriermail.news.com.au/common/story_pa ge/0,5936,7351084%255E1702,00.html.
Australia 'world's gayest country'
23sep03
MORE than 47 per cent of Australians are involved in gay or lesbian relationships, putting the country equal first in the world for its proportion of homosexuals, according to a new worldwide survey.
The survey of sexual habits by international condom maker Durex found that together with Americans, Australians had the highest proportion of same-sex relationships.
At the other end of the scale, Vietnam recorded the lowest proportion of gay and lesbian relationships, at three per cent.
The company said Australians enjoyed a busy love life, having sex on average 125 times per year.
Hungarians came out on top, having sex 152 times per year.
But Australians were still ahead of Americans, at 118 times a year.
The survey also found phone, text and cyber sex were gaining in popularity in Australia, with 43 per cent indulging in "virtual reality sex".
The company said faking orgasms was also common in Australia, with 47 per cent of respondents admitting to doing so at least once.
This was almost twice the global average of 26 per cent.
The survey found 41 per cent of Australian men and women had sex for the first time because they were in love, and most agreed that more foreplay would improve their sex life.
The company said more than 150,000 people took part in the on-line survey, which was now in its seventh year.
Regards, Martin
Would this now be Homing pigeonrank?
These are the jokes, folks, these are the jokes...
And the ninth hit is still the link to the C&D letter listing all the urls they were "ordered" to remove.
KFG
J00 BR0K3 D4 53RV3R ?00 !! 7H3 53Rv3R 15 |)3d !!1F d4 pR0bL3m p3r5i57Z, pl34Z3 m41L google@google.com(teh win) 4nD m3n710N 7H15 3rr0R M3554G3 aNd d4 qu3Ry 7H4T C4U53D i7.
sig censored by america
At the rate Microsoft is going, soon every search will result in a location of Redmond, Washington.
All roads lead to Gates
Ruby on Rails Screencast
Type in a US phone number with area code into google and if your phone number is not a private number/mobile phone google will display your name, address and a map to your house.
Just a US zip. How lame. I expected more from Google. Really!
I see Google uses MapQuest.
For a second I thought of MapBlast!
Which is now owned by the evil empire (MSFT).
Its getting harder and harder to avoid their
tentacles these days.
First, a quick search of most active username on kazaa.
Ah, there we have it. Now, let's find some info on this bastard.
-- --
Google 'Search by location' search term: kazaaliteuser@kazaa.com
Google 'Search by location' region: USA
Google found 2.304.942 search results:
Alabama
A. Allan
1425 21st Street South, Suite 208
Anniston, AL 12205
A. Andrews
517 Beacon Parkway West
Anniston, AL 25209
A. Baccus
106 W Third St
Birmingham, AL 35674
Combining this service with RFID tags...
It then gives you a map with each search result pinned on it. V"
I don't get V, you insensitive clod!
What does it mean to wake out of a dream
and be wearing someone else's shorts?
BNL, Born on a Pirate Ship (1998)
Anyone interested in a steak dinner in Chicago? http://labs.google.com/location?q=steak&geo_near=c hicago+IL&Search=Google+Search
Take it easy? I'll take it anyway I can get it . . .
I can just see Bush now....
Search Term: Osama
Location: Afghanistan
Then its a simple matter of tying the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button to a GPS controlled cruise missile.
As for hot and single, I guess you'll actually have to talk to them and find out, hmm? Did you actually want to talk to a geek, or were you just looking for porno pics of someone with big jugs, playing with a slide rule in interesting ways?
It's funny, I tend to get modded up when I identify myself as a geek-girl, so if that phenomenon holds true for others like me, wouldn't that mean that when you surf at a decent threshold, you should have a good chance of meeting one of us?
BTW - full disclosure: not single (or looking), just trying to find out if you geek-boys really want what you say you want...
pixie
don't mess with those geekgrrls
This is great... combined with something like GoogleAlert you could watch for anything new springing up in your neighborhood!
Is Geographic Google going to make the search engine optimization heads go crazy with spamming zip codes all over their sites or creating multiple geographic pages? http://blogsearchengine.com/blog/index.php?p=13
They have google and froogle. I wonder if they will call this Locoogle, or Locationoogle?
Just a thought...
Here a Sig There a Sig Everywhere a Sig Sig...
On Monday, Google released an experiment on Google Labs, a pre-launch beta testing site, called Google Search by Location which enables users to find information by geographic location. Search Engine Ranking Nuts gonna start posting zip codes all over their sites? Geographoogle
It works like this, according to the FAQ:
How does Google search by location work? Google search by location takes a new approach to helping users find geographic information on the web. For this experiment, we've done something new by analyzing the entire content of a page to extract hints or, what we call "signals," about the geographic nature of a page. From this information, Google determines the corresponding physical location and returns results that match the geographic range you specify (e.g., "near Jacksonville, Florida"). This provides a much broader range of businesses in most cases.
Could it also use the addresses from the WHOIS database? I think this could help in many instances - e.g. alot of personal and bussiness addresses will be correct in the WHOIS database. This could very easily provide correct location data worldwide.
Also, what about those network tools ("hacker trackers") that provide location information according to IP address. I do not think this would work as well, as it would obviously give the server address, rather than the location relevant to the website.
that Google link has a lot of bugs... I crashed their server with one of my test searches.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/yhoo/story.asp?sou rce=blq/yhoo&siteid=yhoo&dist=yhoo&guid=%7B60B5E8C 0%2D9BC1%2D421E%2D95FE%2D56071793DABD%7D
bascially the same idea, the site is no longer working since they where running a test..
http://localdemo.overture.com/
Pocket Girls. Mobile Adult Mini Mags for your Phone.
...as I also had no luck with my search.
"Your search for intelligent executive branch leadership near Washington, DC did not match any documents within 15 miles."
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
"foo" is a term we use when referring to an arbitrary variable. The word you're looking for in relation to this particular server in the google.com domain is "fubar."
About two years ago, I proposed a project to build a UDDI directory covering every web site "in" Europe. We reckoned it would cost around $3 million and 18 months to get to full flight, including adding new sites as they popped up (and allowing people to reclassify themselves if needed). This was to include geocoding so that we could return search results in order of proximity to the end user (when most people here look up Yellow pages, they typically look for local suppliers first).
There are some fairly inexpensive geocoding products around that can map any European postal address to longitude/latitude (some places like Eire don't have ZIP codes implemented, and in other places like Spain, the geography covered by a single code is quite big. For the UK, a postcode covers around 10 houses).
The main issues are having enough elves (University Students with sector expertise - most asked to be paid in Amazon vouchers!) to verify the machine guessed classifications - there are around 14,000 categories to choose from). And to be able to handle situations where one web site maps onto a list of 600 local stores (often hidden behind the scenes in a database), or to know the size of geography each serves.
At the time, the telco where I worked got hit with the bursting bubble, and all the funds for more speculative projects dried up overnight.
I wonder how much effort it would take for Google to become *the* definitive UDDI directory now?
I'm betting there is going to be a lot of patent litigation in this area of location-based web searching. This is an area that a lot of small R&D companies have been toying with for years now, and they all think they're really damn clever. A friend of mine applied for a job with a location-based web search start-up in Massachusetts, and they allowed him onto their demo server; it was quite impressive (far better than this google system), but they had such an air of secrecy about them that you could smell the patents being printed in the back room.
-braddock
As soon as I know what I want...
Several times I've made a long list of things that I'd like in the perfect girl (each list very different). Then I found a girl that met everything on the latest list, with one exception: we could not stand each other.
My list is now down to: Single girl who I can stand to be around. Unfortunatly I'm still a geek, given an opportunity to meet new girls I'd get scared and run to the computer for a nice coding session.
"strip clubs in LA"
Server Error
The server encountered a temporary error and could not complete your request.
Please try again in a minute or so.
arrrgh!
I, for one, welcome our new US overlords.
Tuus crepidae innexilis sunt.
Please try again in a minute or so.
Yep...that's great. I wonder if it gives the same error in every zip code?
//m
Searched for "weapons of mass destruction" in "washington dc" and got lots of hits:o f+mass+ destruction&geo_near=washington+dc&Search=Google+S earch
http://labs.google.com/location?q=weapons+
"empty warhead" in the same area got me a server error. Strange, I thought there was at least one in the white house.
I admit that this would be more overhead for DNS administration but the capability resides within DNS to effectively tag sites (even on thousands of virtual servers in an apache farm) using LOC records. Maybe I'm totally wrong but wouldn't it just be easier to do a reverse lookup of the user (getting the LOC for the ISP IP pool) and matching it to a corresponding LOC record from a pool of service types?
Of course LOC records are not widely used.
Alas British postcode doesn't resolve to single buildings, Jon Abbott, it varies depending on where you live. My parents postcode gives even numbered houses on their suburban street, 21 properties. My postcode resolves to 3 houses ( I live on the edge of town near a farm).
You can have a play by going to http://www.royalmail.com (free login required) and trying "address finder" and typing in a postcode. Choice of English language or Welsh.
I just tried to do a search for chinese delivery near my house. Google responded with a server too busy message. Granted, I'm sure this service isn't on Google's main cluster of servers, but nontheless, we slashdotted google!!
This is indeed a monumentous occassion for geeks everywhere.
The server encountered a temporary error and could not complete your request. Please try again in a minute or so. Google got /.ed!
-=- Many seek good nights and lose good days.
Hrm... Not quite there yet.
Searching for Microsoft and Redmond in the search and location fields yields nothing.
From Google's regular search engine I get these results.
I think they still have some work cut out for them. Granted, it's a great feature, but nothing earth-shattering, since the concept of "yellow pages" has been online for a very long time.
Some notable YP type engines that I might suggest:
- Yahoo Yellow Pages
- InfoSpace
- Bigfoot
user@host$ diff
Your search for "nudie bars" in "Portland, OR" returned 26 locations.
This service definitely has possibilities. Oh BTW, I'll be calling in sick tomorrow.
I live in Canada, you insensitive Clod!
This guy's a troll. Mod down. He's not SETH FINKELSTEIN.
n/m
It is not ready yet. I just ran that search on my zip code with term "storage" and it gave the following error message:
Server Error
The server encountered an error and could not complete your request.
If the problem persists, please mail google@google.com and mention this error message and the query that caused it.
Google Labs - Search by Location FAQ - Terms of Use
This map is informational only and user assumes all risk of use. MapQuest and its suppliers assume
no responsibility for any losses or delays resulting from any such use.
Use subject to license and copyright
(C)2003 Google
This is just what we needed, thanks!
-GWB, DC, and DR
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
http://labs.google.com/location?q=weapons+of+mass+ destruction&geo_near=washington+dc&Search=Google+S earch
Something that's also interesting: The Google Code Jam 2003
Anyone can hack together a linked list inverter. A lot of programmers can put out something more elegant, given unlimited time and resources. Some can even solve complex problems under pressure. But only a handful of coders crank out brilliant code when faced with a mind-bending challenge and a looming deadline. For them, impossible demands are the ones that begin to get just a bit interesting.
We have some serious problems and we'd like to share them with people who are motivated by that kind of challenge. So, you're invited to take part in the Google Code Jam 2003, a programming competition that will be worthy of your time, your skills and your interest.
There are rewards up to $10,000. Check the link above for more info.
Such a useful service smells of another link in the chain toward a blockbuster initial public offering of stock, though the company has maintained staying private during 2003.
Here's a recent article at Mercury News.
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
The Brazilian for one is even better. Google just has to pay for it, since access is public but has a cost.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
I have wished for some time that there was a standard way of putting a GPS location into a html document. The GPS location would default to a server supplied location if it was set explicitly set by the writer, and hopefully system administrators could be convinced to supply default locations.
It would be so nice to be able to ask Google where the closest Mexican restaurant was.
....which most don't...
I really need this!
.au or .nz
I was searching yesterday for possum traps, animal control, suchlike because I have a possum living under my back step I want to get rid of. Nothing personal, he just smells really bad and I want to find someone who will trap and release him somewhere else.
My seach came up with lots of hits, but all were in
Is possum trapping a big thing down-under? I tried to change my search to look for midwest suppliers, but I couldn't come up with anything.
Hope this helps (when it recovers from whatever is wrong with it right now).
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
I tried searching for "Crack Dealers" in "Dallas, TX" and couldn't find any. Oh well.
I tried 3-4 different search criteria (ie: address, city/state, zip, etc)... but everytime I got a server error. Has anyone got it to work?
http://www.google.com/profiles/malachid
:-)
HAND
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
Server Error The server encountered an error and could not complete your request. If the problem persists, please mail google@google.com and mention this error message and the query that caused it.
This search works.
Your search for "people with a clue" near 355 S 520 W, Lindon, UT did not match any documents within 15 miles.
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Really? With 4 accounts at capped karma, I can't help but wonder if he's just on your shitlist.
Your search for hookers near 08234 did not match any documents within 15 miles.
Your search for sluts near 08234 did not match any documents within 15 miles.
Your search for cheap beer near 08234 did not match any documents within 15 miles.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Well if you look at the original description of the project it used data from TIGER and
FIPS , which are US centric, so if that's the way it's still being done, I guess they'd need that data for the rest of the world.
Clearly they need some kind of ranking system like with the normal search engine.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
With four accounts at capped karma, I can't help but wonder what the fuck is wrong with this person.
Today trying to send flowers to a friend I found it much faster to search for florists in the proper area using the phone company's online directory than google's location based search. The google search came up with the usual national online services I was trying to avoid rather than truly local florists.
type in 'sex' and 'new york' as the location and the first thing it comes up with is the registry of sex offenders...hmmm very useful for vigilantes
For example, search for "books" in a particular area code. You get a bunch of YP categories. Drill down to a particular bookstore and you get the YP listing, plus the obligatory Yahoo map. Since the bookstore didn't pay for a link to their own web site Smartpages.com doesn't provide one.
Now do the same search on Google location. You get bunch of book-related links for the area, all nicely plotted on a map. What's really interesting is that many of the links are not for the home page of the business or entity being found, but for a more popular page that references it. (The abovementioned bookstore is represented by an entry on a publisher site.) I suppose that counts as a bug, since you usually want to go straight to someone's own web site. Still, it's terribly impressive that they can so consistently associate address with the correct adressee based on free-form information.
Google does so much neat stuff, I can almost forgive them for moving into the ugliest building in Silicon Valley.
Good day,
Would it hurt the story submitters and/or the moderators to mention it when something is US specific ? Not that we have anything against it, but I'm tired on clicking on a link to only find out that whatever the link is pointing to is US-specific. I was excited by this search-by-location feature and then... saw that it was only for the US. Feel free to mod me down if you want, but Slashdot's readership is NOT 100% American. Get a clue.
I'm bemused by all the posts that insist that this is nothing new, because there are all these Yellow Page database sites. Does it not occur to anybody that (a) you have to pay for a YP listing and (b) pulling street addresses out of a massive collection of free-form web pages is a lot more impressive than retrieving them for a standard relational database?
Localized search found it!
The Melting Pot is an interesting twist on an old 70's family fun fad, only upscale. My wife and I dined there in Chicago and fell in love.
You table has it's own hot grill. Everything is cooked, served, melted, right in front of you. It's a great date experience!
The Melting Pot
-=- Many seek good nights and lose good days.
Strip Clubs have never been easier to find.
(emphasis mine)
See, that's the problem. All (most?) the geek girls are already taken. And so are all the hot girls (and of course all the hot geek girls
Of course, a bigger problem is our lack of social skills. I was talking to a relatively tech-savvy semi-loner girl (someone who is conceivably within my reach), and I literally tripped over my own bag, and threw the Palm in my hand 20 feet while walking and talking to her. Luckily, she didn't say anything about it. But you get the idea...
--Quentin
Chicks like guys who fall for them. :)
... if she at least waited until you got back up, you're on the "A" list!
Seriously, dude
Please don't forget yp.yahoo.com....... Yep once again google comes out with a brand new technology that yahoo has had for ages (*evile grin*)
Oh... if I live in California but my web server is in Edmonton and my files are served from a box in Michigan...... who gets to see my pages?
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
I've been wating this for a long while now. For us slashdotters that are looking for jobs this can help. I've been able to do a search for employment for my city. It came back with some sites that I had would never of found before.
That's too much work: logging in and out and everything.
In fact, I was plesantly surprised that other people started to notice after my prodding.
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
...is MetaScope, which performs Google Image searches inside a Windows screensaver.
t ml
:)
The real hack is the bizarre mind-reading trick:
http://www.krazydad.com/metascope_mindreading.h
A brilliant, yet very simple idea. Wish I'd thought of it
Locality-based sites already exist, and are eager for location-based advertising as you suggest. Here's one of the better ones (and quite possibly the very first one):
http://www.local2me.com/
There's a thriving community of people here, who swap recommendations for services such as plumbers and veterinarians. It's essentially a nationwide message board that filters by distance from you to the poster, so you end up only seeing the very few posts that are pertinent to your location. Advertisements are also filtered by the relevancy of their location to you. A nice idea that seems to work well!
Dr. Demento On The 'Net!
This whole concept of a girl being in your reach is something that guys do that I don't understand. I will admit to you that there are very few geeks that I find attractive, but it's mostly because of that exact attitude.
I don't know how to say this and not sound stupid, but you are worthy of anything that you believe you are worthy of. Having been through a computer science degree in a major university, where I was one of very few girls, I have seen it all, and there are a few things that I can guarantee:
- confident girls won't date guys who don't have a basic level of confidence themselves
- by judging someone "out of your reach" you are by definition not confident in your abilities
- what most guys don't get, is that by judging a woman "within your reach", if she suspects that you have that whole system of "reach" to start with, you are wrecking your chances. Nobody wants to be a consolation prize, or the "best" that can be hoped for.
So, WTF, right? Here's the truth (according to me, for whatever that's worth) - I am not attracted to someone who fearfully calculates their chances with me - I want someone who believes that if they want me they can have me. If you can look me in the eye, with no apology for who you are, and better yet, if I can see a gleam of intelligence and humor there too... well that's about the most attractive thing I can dream of, intellectually and emotionally. Getting to the place where you can do that is the hard part - for myself, it's taken a long time. But the rewards are plentiful.pixie
don't mess with those geekgrrls