Google Adds New Experiments to Google Labs

Yesterday, Google Labs ( http://labs.google.com ) added two new experiments to their site: Google WebQuotes and Google Viewer.

Google Webquotes ( http://labs.google.com/cgi-bin/webquotes ) is an interesting application. You run a regular search, but you specify how many "WebQuotes" you want to go with the results. WebQuotes are comments other people have made about the page. This is an interesting idea. Search for giraffe and the first result, The Giraffe Project, has eight quotes (I only see three of them because I've left the WebQuotes at its default number.)

The quotes provide an overview of information about the Web site. Since this site isn't about giraffes per se, it's handy to know that. A few results down I find pages (with Webquote descriptions) about giraffes. The kind of WebQuotes you get really vary by the words you use. Searching for "giraffe" works well, searching for "Yahoo" gets you more expected results (though it was neat to see the comments about the various Yahoo properties.)

Google Viewer ( http://labs.google.com/gviewer.html ) allows you to view Google results as a slide show. It didn't work in Opera so I had to schlep over to IE to try it out.

Run a search. Google will provide the results with a toolbar across the top of the page, allowing you to stop or go forward in the results (you can also speed up or slow down the presentation, or run another search.) If you do nothing, Google will present the first search result and a live shot of the page. About five seconds later, the second result will scroll up, and so on. If you find a result you like you can stop the slide show, but unfortunately there was no scroll bar on the Web page. I had to click on the Web page and scroll down that way. I think I'd be more interested in this technology if it were used with a more limited data set, like Google News, but it's an interesting idea.

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