which comes up top of the google search results for "timer for 1 hour" for me. Now there is absolutely no way they can compete with Google's own offering from an SEO perspective.
While this example is trivial to some extent, does it set a precedent that while you can advertise and compete with Google, they can always have the unfair advantage at being top of the list.
All joking aside it must be really hard work to keep your ranking at #1 when competitors (and google) can easily replicate your functionality.
If you provide the best product, even better than what google can provide, it won't matter that google put theirs at the top of their search results. e.g. G+ and facebook - no matter how hard google is promoting G+, it still hasn't gotten the traction of facebook.
Even with the google thing that does the function at the top, users have the choice. If it was a "I'm Feeling Lucky" style redirect (but always to a Google service with no search results page) whenever the query fit a format that keyed a Google-provided service, then the user wouldn't have the choice, but giving you a thing that provides what you think you want as well as links to other pages that might either do what you want or have the information you want doesn't deny you the choice of using those other pages instead of Google's tool.
So while yes, it's scary/crazy to launch a web app that is so easily clonable for Google, the "general use" nature of Google means that they'll never have these functions as prominent features. This leaves room for simple web apps who do a better job (or at least have a simple UI that is understandable).
Hmm. Why not? Why can't Google continuing builder richer and richer search results, results which become smarter and smarter in matching what users are looking for? The potential level of customisability for a search result/user to a search query is infinite. At higher levels you move beyond the crude "search" metaphor to what Google is really working towards: full brain-augmentation. Not a tool the mind must learn to use, but a tool built to work with the mind, a tool in fact that is tailored perfectly for each and every mind.
I hope they haven't forgotten that the reason Yahoo lose out to Google was precisely because of this. Yahoo switched their vision from a search engine to a portal, and their product search engine start to suck.
This is dangerous. The best ad platform (which generates the most revenue) are those that are most efficient at sending traffic to advertiser's properties. Facebook main source of revenue comes from mobile app install ads which direct users to the app store for download, and page post ads, which sends traffic to advertiser's website.
A change in priority to hold users as long as possible on Google search isn't very tenable in the long term.
This feels like a feature that the OS should have but most don't, and I'll use it like I use google as a calculator or as a dictionary: if it's faster to open a tab and put in the query than it is to launch a program or a particular page and start a timer there. I did the same thing when I was on windows and it was faster to ask google than to run "calc" and then do the calculation, and it was the same tradeoff when I switched to a mac and it turned out spotlight could do many calculations even faster with just a command-space.
[1] http://mentalized.net/journal/2003/08/12/google_rocks_my_wor...
But their recent card-based solution to a lot of searches seems to show that they're trying to keep users on Google-owned properties. Try searching for a movie review. You'll notice that everything that pertains to the movie is shown on top and on the right. Clicking on actors lead to yet another google search result with another card on the right. In short, you're being kept within Google.
Does it get you the information you're looking for in as little time as possible? Absolutely. But they're doing this at the expense of the sites they took the data from.
That would be Freebase, which is what it's for.
I'm not really seeing your point for that example, though. Maybe for something simpler it would be true, but if I'm looking for a movie review, the information in the top right isn't sufficient for anything besides seeing a wikipedia summary, a screenshot, and some of the actors in it. Anything deeper would require clicks into the actual content, which is actually an apt analog to a simple timer not replacing anything of substance.
define <a word> 1 + 2 open <filename> etc.
It's "magical".
I was looking for a timer utility the other day. I googled "timer 10 minutes", and got back a list of options, with no way to choose one that was actually good (the top result claimed it had an audio indicator but it didn't work, so I ended up missing the end of the ten minutes). Likewise, I used to Google for weather forecasts -- then pick a site, wait for all its chrome to load, and then get my forecast. Now, I search for what I want and get it right away. If I don't like Google's version, I just scroll down to the search results.
At first, their only way to get users what they wanted was to get them off the site; the goal is still to get users what they want as soon as possible -- there's just a better way to do so now.
The right solution is for Google to open up the SERP in a limited way, allow sites to put their widgets there and let them compete. This is tricky (tech, business, UX...) but it's doable and it would be better for the future of the Web.
Of course the timer sucks for the owner of the top-ranking timer, but I can't see how it diminishes user experience in any way.
I would argue that Yahoo! lost to Google because Yahoo!'s business was in approximating a solution to a problem that users had, and Google came along and figured out a way to much more directly address that problem. Curated lists were better than nothing, and for a long time, it was the best thing available. Google simply built a new type of thing that made the old way immediately obsolete.
Search engines' goal is to deliver information and services to their users as fast as possible. If they can provide those themselves, it's a win both for them and their users.
I wrote about it here: http://pioul.fr/dont-trust-search-engines-with-your-traffic
See also:
https://www.google.com/#q=calculator
https://www.google.com/#q=time%20in%20new%20york
https://www.google.com/#q=50%20miles%20to%20km
https://www.google.com/#q=1%20usd%20to%20rmb
Bud Light: 109 calories in 120z. Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA: 294 calories in 12oz. Weyerbacher Merry Monks: 279 calories in 12oz.
In a world where people still don't know what a browser is, I am optimistic for online-stopwatch.
The Google Search field is the CLI of the web?
I've also noticed the results of a search for [Olympic medal count] steadily improve every two years so that I no longer need to click through to any search results to see the data I want.
Sometimes I think that your only option as an affiliate in these markets now is to brand yourself so heavily (MoneySuperMarket, for instance) that people search for your brand, understanding what you do, rather than trying to rank first for the generic term (compare insurance, cheap insurance etc) and hope they click your link.
Even if Google's offering for some of these things is still not as pushed as it could be today, what's to say they won't butcher your traffic / revenue tomorrow?