Google have just launched a new version of their mobile search service and it looks a lot like Yahoo! Mobile OneSearch with some added personalisation features.
The new version can be seen at:
It includes the following changes:
- No more options to search Images, local or mobile-friendlly pages
Instead, the algorithm automatically detects the nature and source of the query and automatically delivers the right type of content - Personalised home is differently personalised
Instead of the personalised home page that just imported the regular Google personalised home, the new one is more mobile specific, providing location specific news, weather, showtimes etc. - Memory of searcher’s locations
Once a location is entered, Google remembers it now, saving valuable keystrokes and time - Better quality
This part is a bit of a grey area (as usual). Google promises to deliver the exact content searchers are looking for within just one click. How exactly they will do this is anyoe’s guess!
Three simple tests have revealed pretty satisfactory answers:
- Search for accuracast
The search brought up our home page and some other pages, same as the regular Google search. At the bottoms of the page were links to search images and news. - Search for Madonna
This brought up 2 images, one of some woman in Maryland and her child (akin to Madonna and child?) and the second image of the pop star, followed by links to her website and some fan sites etc, similar to regular Google search results. - Search for Iran British navy (or any other current news topic)
News headlines about the current conflict between the UK and Iran were shown as the first 2 listings, followed by relevant web pages and then some images such as the Iranian flag.
Yahoo! OneSearch and even MSN Mobile have been delivering content in a similar fashion for a while now, so in this case, Google is actually playing catch-up, for once!
