Google launching 'Universal Search'
At Google's Searchology press event right now, Marissa Mayer just announced a feature we're all going to appreciate: "Universal Search." Google is finally going to display results from various "silos" of search on one page. In other words, you'll no longer have to search books, videos, pictures, and the Web separately. The new Google search will display everything on one page.
Mayer also showed how videos from Google and YouTube will even play in the Google search results. Very cool.
You'll still be able to drill into data types ("corpuses"), but Google will only display links to the most relevant ones for each search.
The first silos to be brought into Universal Search: Books, Local Search, Images, News, and Video. Plus Web results, obviously. Mayer says the new feature will be rolling out today.
Speaking of Universal, a new "Universal navigation bar" will appear on Google services. It lets you quickly navigate between services, like Search and Gmail.
And if you want to always get the latest Google experiments in your engine, check out www.google.com/experimental. There's cool stuff there, like timeline and map views of search results.
Watch CNET News.com for more news; Elinor Mills is at the Searchology conference.
From the Searchology event: Marissa Mayer demos Universal Search.
(Credit: Google)
Rafe Needleman writes about start-ups, new technologies, and Web 2.0 products, as editor of CNET's Webware. E-mail Rafe.
