Has it happened to you yet?
Have you typed in a Google search and found yourself staring at that new little results box with entries that change every few seconds? Has it enhanced your search experience or driven you crazy?
The real-time search box doesn't come up for every search on Google, and even though Twitter has reportedly inked a $25 million deal with Microsoft and Google (for $15 million and $10 million respectively) that pays Twitter for access to its real-time results, I haven't yet seen the box on Bing. At least I still feel like I understand the search results there.
In a world where technology seems to change almost daily, I guess it's just best to embrace change. But for me, the new information on Google still creates more questions than it answers. Here are just a few of them:
What algorithms determine what shows up in the real time results?
It's not like consumers ever controlled algorithms in traditional search results, but the immediacy of the results you get seem to make it more important to understand how they get there in the first place -- that's if you ever want to actually find useful information in real time. In other words, would I get less search "garbage" if I look for certain phrases or exclude certain terms?
Why don't real-time results show on Bing?
Do you have to search differently to get the results on Bing? Is there now more reason to use one search engine over the other depending on what kind of info you're looking for?
What if you get an awesome link in your results, only to click away and come back to find it's disappeared?
Maybe this is why I'm reluctant to get hooked on real-time results. Maybe I'm afraid I'll find a nugget of useful information among all the results flowing in only to lose it in the great sea of blog and micro-blogging results.
As I ponder these and other questions, I just came across a post that assures me I'm not the only one still trying to figure this all out. According to Search Engine Land, Brittany Murphy's death is the first big test for Google's real time search results. As sad as her death is, I'm glad it's not a major world crisis that's leaving everybody scrambling how to figure out how to use this latest technology tool.
Showing posts with label google. Show all posts
Showing posts with label google. Show all posts
Monday, December 21, 2009
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Real Time is a Real Drag
This is only my second post, but I'm going out on a limb anyway.
I hate Google's new real-time results.
There, I said it. I feel so much better now. I know my opinion probably puts me in the know-nothing category for a lot of social media aficionados, but I don't care. It was already hard enough to find what you wanted in search results -- now you have to wade through Twitter posts too? How is this improving my search experience?
Take my search today for LL Zamenhof. I was curious about today's Google doodle, so I checked it out, and it happens to be the birthday of Zamenhof, the creator of Esperanto, an international language.
I clicked on a few links to get more information, just as I usually would when doing a search. But then, approximately 5 results down, the Twitter posts started flooding in. A lot of them just had #google and a link to Google's explanation of their doodle (guess I'm not the only one who found the father of Esperanto to be a somewhat obscure reference). The posts that didn't have the hashtag didn't really have anything important to add, but they just keep coming in. And I kept looking at them, thinking "I'm going to get some enlightening piece of information from some random Twitter post." Finally, I realized I would probably be staring a long time and moved on to something more productive.
I'm trying to think of instances where these immediate results would be useful, and I guess if there were an emergency of some kind like an earthquake or a school shooting the up-to-the-minute results would be welcome. But then again, since you can never be sure of the source of the information or its accuracy, maybe these posts would just add to the confusion.
In one of his posts last week, big-time blogger Pete Cashmore made a huge deal about this latest development in real-time web searches. So again, I know I must be the odd woman out in not thinking this is the greatest thing since the iPhone. But until I find myself in the midst of a panic situation where I welcome even the smallest slice of info from a random stranger, I'm greeting this new Google functionality with lukewarm enthusiasm.
I hate Google's new real-time results.
There, I said it. I feel so much better now. I know my opinion probably puts me in the know-nothing category for a lot of social media aficionados, but I don't care. It was already hard enough to find what you wanted in search results -- now you have to wade through Twitter posts too? How is this improving my search experience?
Take my search today for LL Zamenhof. I was curious about today's Google doodle, so I checked it out, and it happens to be the birthday of Zamenhof, the creator of Esperanto, an international language.
I clicked on a few links to get more information, just as I usually would when doing a search. But then, approximately 5 results down, the Twitter posts started flooding in. A lot of them just had #google and a link to Google's explanation of their doodle (guess I'm not the only one who found the father of Esperanto to be a somewhat obscure reference). The posts that didn't have the hashtag didn't really have anything important to add, but they just keep coming in. And I kept looking at them, thinking "I'm going to get some enlightening piece of information from some random Twitter post." Finally, I realized I would probably be staring a long time and moved on to something more productive.
I'm trying to think of instances where these immediate results would be useful, and I guess if there were an emergency of some kind like an earthquake or a school shooting the up-to-the-minute results would be welcome. But then again, since you can never be sure of the source of the information or its accuracy, maybe these posts would just add to the confusion.
In one of his posts last week, big-time blogger Pete Cashmore made a huge deal about this latest development in real-time web searches. So again, I know I must be the odd woman out in not thinking this is the greatest thing since the iPhone. But until I find myself in the midst of a panic situation where I welcome even the smallest slice of info from a random stranger, I'm greeting this new Google functionality with lukewarm enthusiasm.
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