Google goes real time

The guys at Google have finally made a move to try head off the competition by launching new search options which will index shit loads of the web in real time, and marry those results with its relevance-ranking technology to make sense of the torrents of information being published via Twitter, Facebook and blogs. Oh wait, Google have done something super cool again? NO?

So this was announced yesterday at their “Searchology” event that they have released these new wicked options that we will be able to customise, now, when you click “Search Options,” you can filter your search with more specific results like by time, related searches, a “wonder wheel” view, or a timeline view.

This is rather an aggressive push by Google to keep its mantle as search-innovation leader during times of pressure from rivals, something the boys aren’t really used to . Microsoft effectively beat Google to the real-time punch, announcing Facebook and Twitter partnerships for its Bing search engine at the Web 2.0 Summit in October.

Google executive Amit Singhal said that with more information being put on the web every day, it was vital that the company learned how to give users the most relevant results - and as quickly as possible.

“Information is being posted at a pace I have never seen before,” he said. “In this information environment, seconds matter.”

The announcement aims to address a major perceived shortcoming in Google’s technology, which has been critisised lately for not keeping up with the flood of short status updates on social networks, which some see as creating a new information revolution defined by instantaneous, or “real time,” distribution of information

This new Google search feature wont be a replacement, it will be embedded as a new part of the main page search window. Now you will see a scrolling feed with constant updates informing you of the newest results on your particular search, and you can also backtrack to see what you have missed. Google’s Real-Time Search went live yesterday but may not work as well as we would like. Google says it may take a couple days fully roll out its functions. You can give it a try for yourself at Google Trends, click on a Hot topic or try your own search.

Not only have they got room for Facebook and Twitter in their stream, but Google said they are now the first search company to partner with MySpace for real-time search. Not too sure what that’s all about?

Google said its real-time search offers not just a stream of data, but an organized stream filtered of spam and other irrelevant information. The key to keeping the updates relevant is that Google judges “author quality,” “probability of relevance” and “query hotness,” according to Singhal. “That’s what real-time search is all about,” he said.

The most important thing is that Google have realised that people when they search are looking for answers and are not too interested in the best links anymore. This is something that the team at Microsoft Bing and Yahoo have been pushing for a year now and we kinda thought Google would have incorporated this into their tried and tested Pagerank system ages ago.

We are just excited that Google have gone “real time” regardless of how long it has taken them, and it does show that they have taken the Bing threat seriously and are not just going to sit back on their current share of search and keep up with the awesome innovation that we expect from them. This shows us that they are not the “fuck you we will keep doing it our way” type of company and that they know what their customers want.