Filed under: Design, Developer, Internet, Productivity, Google, Beta, Search
SearchMash now comes in Flash flavour
SearchMash is a playground of sorts for Google to experiment with interaction and the display of search results. Now they have taken their simple search philosophy to the limits and added in a Flash interface for a more interactive look at results.
The new interface uses Snap previews of websites before they are visited and tabs that seamlessly switch between web, image and video searches. Keyboard shortcuts and mouse scroll wheel interactions have also been put into place for quicker navigation. A list of recent searches is conveniently hidden on the left side, with a portion of a window slightly sticking out. When moused over, a tray slides out and display the keywords. Not the best placement and surely not something that the average user would know where to mouse over. Then again, we have to pinch ourselves because this is after all just a test search interface for Google to play around with. Of course the HTML version of the site is still available if you aren't inclined to search with Flash.
What do you think of this little Google experiment. Would Flash interfaces fly for search efforts in the real world?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Peter said 5:01PM on 10-26-2007
It has a flavor.
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michael said 5:04PM on 10-26-2007
Uh, we already have several search engines out there that utilizes these features.
Tafiti : http://www.tafiti.com/Original/default.aspx
Ms. Dewey : http://www.msdewey.com/
Ask.com : http://www.ask.com/
So SearchMash with Flash isn't anything new.
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Mysterius said 12:30AM on 10-27-2007
Really? I don't see any web site previews.
And taiti, famously, runs on Silverlight.
Not to mention that, of the 3 sites you listed, only Ask is a serious search engine. The others are more like search toys that Microsoft's put out for us to play with.
SearchMash, on the other hand, is a serious testing ground for ideas that have a good chance of making it someday into Google proper, the world's leading search engine.
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michael said 1:14AM on 10-27-2007
@Mysterius:
What's your point of Tafiti running on Silverlight? Silverlight happens to be gaining on some ground against Flash as the next best thing. As soon as it's out of beta of course.
They may be somewhat like toys, but they're quite usable. Enter a search query, out pops some results.
The world's leading search engine? Wow, such a title. I use to Google a lot before, but sometime when I look for very narrow searches, Google doesn't come up good with the right links. And some people have commented that lately Google's relevancy is slipping a bit. Plus Google has done nothing much with it's "real" search engine since the small update of fixing up a few link in the UI.
Meanwhile, Y! Search comes out with Search Assist (which was already available in the WinLive Toolbar for awhile), and Live Search takes on a whole new look, which to me is much more improved than the competition. And works just as well.
So SearchMash is a laugh until we see it come to life.
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