Google unveils interesting new search features

Google arguably offers the most innovative web service around, and undeniably so among other search competitors. They hold over 63% of the US market share, as compared to the 20% held by its greatest rival, Yahoo. Despite releasing over 365 products in 2008, and 120 in the first quarter of this year alone, they are convinced that search as a whole has yet to breach its infancy. Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience, believes that "innovation" and "continued improvement" is a key component in the search race.

In conjunction with this believe, Mayer and her team unveiled four of Google’s latest projects at “Searchology”. Google Squared was one of the more intriguing features showcased at the annual event. The function pulls information from the web, and systematically categorizes the data in a spreadsheet. In a demonstration, the team ran a search for “small dog”. In mere moments, a table was presented with a variety of breed images, their origin, weight and height in an astonishingly clean format.

The other recent innovations include Rich Snippets, Google Search Options and Skymap. Rich Snippets is said to allow Google to recognize both RDFa and Microformat standards. Through the introduction of additional manipulation options, Google Search Options will provide users with a way of further refining and filtering their search results. Lastly, Skymap is an astrology-oriented Android app able to display constellations by using a smartphone’s GPS capabilities.