Google Labs Offers Table-Based Search Results

blackbearnh writes "Google just released Google Squared into the Google Labs playground. Google Squared lets you get results back in row and column format, and then add more columns to the result set. There's a brief tour of the features over on O'Reilly Radar, where the judgement is that there's lots of rough edges, but a huge amount of potential, especially for quick and dirty table generation for reports."

Comments

How it works

[Reality Master 101]

This actually seems to be a pretty simple concept. It takes the keywords on the y axis (which is the initial search), and then generates popular keywords for the x axis, and then does searches for the combinations to fill in the boxes. What goes in the box is the least amount of the target page that more-or-less fulfills the keyword search. So as near as I can tell, there's no "semantic" analysis here, it's basically a bunch of mini web searches in a grid format. It's an interesting concept, but I don't see it as any sort of world changing function, like the hype seemed to imply.

Re:Bible Books

[hansamurai]

Well, she was a concubine of Xerxes (of 300 fame) and later his wife chosen because of her extraordinary beauty (and intelligence, but whatever).

Wow. Pretty cool.

[sootman]

But when I asked for http://www.google.com/squared/search?q=supermodels I couldn't help but notice it was missing a few key columns.

HOLY CRAP! This post started out as a joke but then I then typed 'measurements' into the 'Add columns' box and it effing worked! Then click in the 'Add items' in the lower left, add the 5 suggestions, do that a few more times, and BAM, you've got a good amount of data. Holy crap, this is neat. There goes the rest of my day. I could see using this for actual work, like bridge lengths and building heights and such.

And it's FUN! Data appears instantly, as if by magic, complete with pictures. I've never said this in my 10+ years on Slashdot, but everyone, GO RTFA! Actually, skip TFA, just go visit the site!