Wednesday, June 01, 2005
The Battle of the Labs
Yahoo! and Google, for example, spend millions of dollars each year in their so-called “Labs”. It is here that they work to create their next generation information browsing and research tools. My post-office hours are sometimes spent in awe of these applications that show us the beginnings of a truly connected networks.
For example, Google’s Ridefinder shows the real-time positions of several taxicab company cars in major cities. It works in conjuction with Google Maps to provide you with the actual locations of cabs near you. You can’t order them yet, but it’s only a matter of time.
The folks over at Yahoo! Research seem a little more academic and serious in their pursuit of new ground, and give funky names to their projects like the ”Mindset Research Demo.” That particular application allows you to search for any term, but then adjust on a slider, whether you plan to shop for that item, or are just trying to find information on it. It adjusts its results dynamically as you move the slider.
Far more interesting than that is the Tech Buzz Game that, as Yahoo! puts it, “ is a fantasy prediction market for high-tech products, concepts, and trends. As a player, your goal is to predict how popular various technologies will be in the future. Popularity or buzz is measured by Yahoo! Search frequency over time.”
What I really like about what Google Labs does is that they’re constantly trying to fix issues with finding information. While Yahoo!’s pursuits are fantastic, they’re still a bit too academic for me. Google keeps adding features that I’ve started to take great pleasure in discovering.
For example, you can now enter your FedEx or UPS tracking number directly into your Google Search Bar, and have the tracking results pop right up. You can enter a phone number and have it do an automatic nationwide reverse-directory search. You can SMS “Rubicon, San Francisco” to GOOGL (46645) and have it return a number, and an address. You can enter filetype:ppt and have your search results just return PowerPoint files. You can even enter in things like (25*45)+34 and have it come up with the calculated results.
PC Magazine has a great article on 20 Great Google Secrets that gets into more detail on what you can do.