Google makes searching more collaborative

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 11 May 2006 17:29

Business IT - Technology

Google has introduced three new products - Google Co-op, Google Desktop 4, and Google Notebook , designed to help its users find and share information more relevant to their needs.
The company also introduced Google Trends, describing it as "a new tool that enables users to examine billions of searches conducted on Google to gain insight into broad search patterns over time".

Google says its three new search products all incorporate new capabilities that leverage user communities, enabling users to either share more information with others or benefit from other users' expertise to improve the accuracy of search results.

Google Co-op beta is a community where users can contribute their knowledge and expertise to improve Google search for everyone. Organisations, businesses, or individuals can label web pages relevant to their areas of expertise or create specialised links to which users can subscribe. Once a user has subscribed to a provider's content, all of that provider's labels and subscribed links are added to the user's search results for relevant queries.

According to Google, these contributions serve as meta information that helps Google's search algorithms connect users to the most relevant information for their specific query. Users interested in contributing can get started at www.google.com/coop. The beta service is available on all English language Google domains including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.

As a first step, Google has worked with partners to annotate web pages related to health and city guides and to offer dozens of subscribed links to specialised content such as restaurant and movie information.

It expects that the broader online community will begin building out new topic areas and subscribed links to help improve the way people find and discover information online.

Users can subscribe to content and providers at www.google.com/coop/directory. Google Desktop 4 Beta

Google Desktop 4 beta - available in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Dutch, and Brazilian Portuguese - offers another way for users to improve their search experience, by personalising their desktops with the introduction of Google Gadgets, mini-applications that reside on users' desktops and deliver a variety of personalised information such as games, media players, weather and news. Google Desktop can also recommend new gadgets and can automatically create a personalised homepage for users based on the subjects they frequently search and access.

Google says it has hundreds of gadgets users can add to their desktops and with the new Google Desktop Gadgets API, developers can easily create and share their own gadgets with other users.

Google Desktop 4 will be available in additional languages and include more localised features as the product evolves. More information at http://desktop.google.com.

Google Trends builds on the Google Zeitgeist to help users find facts and trends related to Google usage around the world. Google Trends enables users to learn how popular a particular search term has been on Google over time and see the relevant news articles that ran on that subject.

"For the first time ever, Google is making it possible to sift through billions of search queries from around the world to see what people are thinking about," said Marissa Mayer, vice president, search products and user experience at Google.

Google Notebook is billed as "a simple way for users to save and organise their thoughts when conducting research online. It is a personal browser tool permits users to clip text, images, and links from the pages they are browsing, save them to an online 'notebook" that is accessible from any computer, and share them with others.

Google describes Notebook as "an interactive scratch pad for every website a user visits, offering a single online location to collect web findings without having to leave the browser window. Google Notebook will be available next week from Google Labs at www.google.com/notebook.