Google has unveiled a new home and tools for its Realtime search offering.
Although the web giant has been using Realtime search across its search engine, the new home allows you to see conversation views of Twitter messages and an improved overview of the Realtime web. Google has introduced geographic refinements to find updates and news near you, or in a region of your choice.
Google Alerts has also been updated. You can now create an alert specifically for “updates” to get an email as soon as your topic appears on Twitter.
The new Realtime search page makes for an interesting rival to Twitter’s own search engine. Previously Google’s Realtime offerings were only part of the usual search experience and not offered separately. Google hopes that by giving Realtime its own home and more powerful tools, you will find what you need even faster. You can access Google’s Realtime page here and setup your Realtime alerts here.
CloudMagic, a new extension for Firefox and Chrome which is designed to allow super fast search of your inbox, as well as in-window preview and multiple account search was released earlier this week, promising to “revolutionise” your inbox.
The software looks good, and while it requires your password to access Gmail, stores all data locally, so no need to worry about who else might snoop into your inbox. It doesn’t actually use Gmail’s built in search box, but instead adds one on the top right of your window to allow you to use both.
The indexing service works surprisingly well, and is very easy to setup. All you need to to is drop your logins into the preferences page, and it’ll begin indexing. You can add as many accounts for indexing as you like, and the service will index them in one place. I found it particularly handy when in the middle of an email, I was able to search for previous correspondance without having to leave the open page, preview it on the same page, then carry on emailing.
CloudMagic also indexes your contacts, and future versions will index Google Documents, much like the “Search Documents and Sites” lab that is built into Gmail.
On my first run I actually ran into compatibility problems with Firefox 4.0 Beta 3 and 4. Eventually I managed to install it in Google Chrome, but found that because my work uses a proxy, I couldn’t use the extension. CloudMagic does support proxies, but only if certain ports are enabled.
The world’s most popular search engine, Google, has confirmed it has begun limited testing of a new search results page that updates as you type your query.
SEO consultant Rob Ousbeyspotted the change and recorded a video of the new-look page (embedded below), which a Google spokesperson today confirmed is in limited testing and one of “50-200 experiments” running at any one time on the popular search engine.
“At any given time we are running between 50-200 search experiments. You can learn more on our blog,” Stricker told TechCrunch, pointing out this post from the official Google blog in 2006 which talks about the many experiments the company runs on their search engine.
As Ousbey types in his query, the search results page is reloaded automatically to reflect the new search terms – no action is needed by Ousbey to reload the page manually. Some have pointed out the impact this may have on Google’s advertising product, AdWords, which displays ads alongside Google search results – but given the roll-out for the moment remains limited, advertisers are unlikely to be affected for the time being.
The latest experiment is perhaps one of the more radical undertaken since the search giant revealed their big new re-design earlier this year, which saw a cleaner layout and refresh of the Google logo for the first time in a long time. The company is also innovating at a much faster rate as underdogs such as Microsoft’s Bing search engine begin to innovate and claim back some of Google’s massive market share.
Microsoft said on Monday that it is excited that that Bing will be included as a search option in Safari.
Speaking on the Bing Blog, Yusuf Mehdi, Senior Vice President, Online Audience Business Group said that Microsoft had been working closely with Apple to bring Bing to Safari. “We’ve been working with Apple over the last couple of months to deliver a fantastic Bing offering for Safari, including some awesome HTML5 work for Safari on iPhone, and we hope you will be pleased with the results,” Mehdi said.
Mehdi also hinted at an update for the existing Bing iPhone application. The update will include “even more great features very soon”, according to Mehdi. “Needless to say, we are excited that Bing will be included as an option in Safari because it will make it easier for you to search and get the benefits of Bing”. Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that Bing would be included as a search option during his WWDC keynote earlier today. “Microsoft has done a really nice job on this, it’s an HTML5 presentation, it’s great” said Jobs.
Bing will be included as one of the search engine choices within Safari on iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and within the Safari browser on the Mac and PC.
