Google launches SearchWiki
Did you notice the little icons near you google search results this morning (at least if you were logged on your google account when you did the search). They are SearchWiki icons. This way, if you like or a result, you can promote it, so that it will always show in 1st position when you do that search again.
In the same vein, you can ban search results, so that never appear again, add URLs that you think would be relevant matches to that query (potential for social indexing here…), and add comments, public or private.
This reminds me a lot of Jaime Re:Search project (see http://people.csail.mit.edu/teevan/work/publications/ ).
About the ability to add comments, I wonder if there will be pressure to remove that feature, since it enables anyone to post anything about any website similarly to ThirdVoice, which was discontinued a few years ago: http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2001/04/42803.
However, I tried to add a sample public comment on my csail webpage, but it didn’t show in google search once I had logged out (or when logged in from another account). I don’t if there’s a delay for other people to see public comments from other people, or I’m missing something about how public google comment work: (Blog) comments are welcome !
From google’s blog… http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/searchwiki-make-search-your-own.html
“The changes you make only affect your own searches. But SearchWiki also is a great way to share your insights with other searchers. You can see how the community has collectively edited the search results by clicking on the “See all notes for this SearchWiki” link.”
Interesting. It does remind me of Jaime’s work. (BTW, I used to be a csail-er) I couldn’t get it on my Korean google site (I live in Korea now), so I had to switch to “English Google” to see it. This blog is great!
This new feature from google called searchwiki is sure causing a stir among techies and regular surfers. Some people hate it some people love it. It is basicly a digg style vote/comment system for google search results. Check out what it looks like (if its not working in your region yet) at http://thesearchwiki.com to see some captures and video about how it works.