Google Inc’s search engine now displays results before users finish typing.
The new technology, dubbed Google Instant, can shave two to five seconds off every Internet search, Google said on Wednesday, and could entice users to search more on its Web site.
With competition increasing from Internet rivals, such as Microsoft Corp, Yahoo Inc and Facebook, the technology gives Google new ammunition to tout its advantages to Web surfers and online advertisers.
PHOTO: REUTERS
“To our knowledge no one has provided search-as-you-type to their users,” said Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president of search and user experience, on the sidelines of an event announcing the product at San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art on Wednesday.
During a presentation unveiling Google Instant on Wednesday, Mayer compared the new technology to an automobile’s power steering.
“Once you get used to it, it’s very tough to go back,” said Mayer, though she acknowledged that in testing certain users had opted to switch off the new feature.
The new technology, which was made available in the US on Wednesday, means Google’s search engine can serve up a local weather forecast as soon as a user types the letter “W” in the search box, for instance. If the user continues typing a word other than “weather” into the search box, the results on the page instantly refresh and change accordingly.
Google already offered a feature that suggested popular search queries as a user typed a word in the search box, but the new feature actually delivers a complete page of search results as a search term is being typed.
Analysts said the new technology could help Google, the world’s No. 1 search engine, further increase its market share.
Stifel Nicolaus analyst Jordan Rohan called Google Instant a “potential game changer” that competitors would have a hard time replicating in a note to investors on Wednesday.
Google generated nearly US$24 billion of revenue last year, predominantly from search advertising. The company said the technology would also be made available in many more countries, including France and the UK, in several weeks, and said it hoped to have a version that works on smartphones available in the coming months.
Separately, Google’s legal chief called for pressure on governments that censor the Internet, such as China and Turkey, arguing that blocking access to Web sites not only violates human rights, but unfairly restrains US trade.
The remarks, by Google chief legal officer David Drummond, mark a new economic theme in the Web company’s campaign for an unrestricted Internet and may inflame a touchy relationship with China, after the company threatened to stop censoring online searches there earlier this year.
“Internet censorship is really a trade barrier and is operating that way for US companies that are trying to do business abroad,” Drummond said at a public meeting with US Trade Representative Ron Kirk and other corporate executives at Google’s headquarters in California’s Silicon Valley. “If this were happening with physical trade and manufacturing goods, we’d all be saying this violates trade agreements pretty fundamentally.”
Drummond said a large and growing number of countries are now censoring the Internet in a variety of ways, for economic as well as political reasons. As an example, he said, Google’s YouTube online video service was blocked in more than 20 countries and has been banned in Turkey for two years.
“In our view at Google, it’s high time for us to start really sinking our teeth into this one,” Drummond said. “We have great opportunities now with pending trade agreements to start putting some pressure on countries to recognize that Internet freedom not only is a core value — that we should be holding them to account from a human rights standpoint — but also that if you want to be part of the community of free trade, you are going to have to find a way to allow the Internet to be open.”
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