I’ve been playing with Google’s new “blank” searches. Quite impressive.
Here’s the new feature in a nutshell:
“instead of asking [who invented the parachute?], you can enter the query [the parachute was invented by *]. (The blank, or wildcard, search is marked by * – an asterisk.)”
Here’s an example. Search Google for:
Robert Scoble is a *
and you’ll get back as the first hit:
“Robert Scoble is a “technical evangelist” who works for Microsoft”
Cool.
And who am I? Checking Google for:
I get back two hits with the topmost hit:
“Loren Heiny is a developer who totally get’s tablets!”
Thanks for the kind words Julie Lerman, but I’m just like a lot of enthusiastic Tablet developers. We see great potential in the platform and try our best to build the apps we can envision.
OK, what about less well-known people, where there are tons of mentions on the Internet. Give it a try. Search Google for:
George Bush is a *
Ooops. I’ll skip that one. 🙂
Checking facts is made easier by the new query support too:
* is the capital of Arkansas
Correctly, Google replies Little Rock. Cool.
Now what about finding a recommedation of a product? For instance, how might you search for the best Tablet PC, Google-style? Here’s one query:
* is the best Tablet PC
The answer according to CNet (April 2004) is a Motion Tablet.
OK. Here’s a harder one:
* is the best *
Sure enough not much interesting is returned. The query is too general.
The trick is to think in terms of how a content author would have phrased the answer you are looking for. For instance, you don’t ask “How many quarts are in a gallon?” Instead, you query Google for “There are * quarts in a gallon.” Typically, this means you should think in terms of declarative statements rather than questions.
Next up Google can try to rephrase questions as declarative statements with blanks and perform the searches. For instance, Google could try to translate “What does Robert Scoble do?” or “Who is Robert Scoble?” to “Robert Scoble is *” or with less success “Robert Scoble does *”. This probably isn’t all that easy, but what’s so smart about Google’s blank approach is that it’s one step along the path to solving the bigger challenge of making search easier. True, you can learn a lot from a top down approach that starts with the question-based queries, but I like this results-oriented approach better. My guess is it’ll lead to better results quality faster. Just a guess though.
Here’s what other people on the Net think Google should do:
I really don’t see what all the fuss is about this one. Myself and other trainers have been saying for years ‘don’t think about the question, think how the answer is going to be phrased and search for that’. With the one exception of a wildcard internal to a phrase – which I will grant is useful – you can get virtually exactly the same results by just doing a phrase search for “the parachute was invented by” and this works equally well in Google and MSN Search – although interestingly we get very different answers from both.
Don’t get me wrong, I think Google is great, but this is being hyped way out of proportion.