Google’s mad scientists
Google’s done it again. With the announcement of its online Labs project, it showed that as a commercial and a technological operation, it is way ahead of its competitors.
The Lab is a digital playground where Google can put stuff that is still under development. The first four offerings are a search-by-telephone system (not much use unless you live in the USA), a dictionary and thesaurus (an obvious addition to Google’s existing services), a system of keyboard shortcuts so you can navigate Google search results without using the mouse (if you’re using Internet Explorer), and most interesting of the lot, Google sets.
Google sets asks you to input several keywords. The search engine then looks for related items and brings you a set of ready-to-click searches. Type “Britney Spears”, “Robbie Williams” and “Kylie Minogue” in and you’ll see how it works. (Oddly, though, it can’t find anything if you just enter “Britney”, “Robbie” and “Kylie”.)
The beauty of the Google labs is that they are experimental, and clearly labelled as such. The experiments might become new Google features, or might be taken away never to return.
But it says a lot for Google that it is willing to make its internal product development open like this. The internet is the kind of medium with which this sort of thing ought to be happening all the time, but Google is the first major web site to do it. Can you imagine Microsoft or Yahoo releasing beta-versions of web services?
Google’s bosses say their mission is to open up the world’s information to the people. So far, so (very) good.