Did you know that 'lyrics' is
the most searched term on Google in the
last five years? Lyrics! Of all things! Not porn, not news, not even games -- but
lyrics. And Google, de facto masters of search, know that there's more to search than merely quality or quantity or veracity -- it's about getting the results, when you want them -- i.e.
right now. They call it
'time to result': How long does it take to find what you're looking for? If you search for 'Journey', there's a fairly good chance that you're looking for a Journey video or lyrics, and not a journey-planning site -- and that's what their
latest search feature brings you.
You don't even need to know the song title -- if Google can match your lyric fragment against a song, it'll pop up at the top of your search results. Neat.
Google might've been developing this one for some time, but instead of implementing their own library of music and needlessly repeating a vast wealth of data already out there on the Internet, Google have partnered with
Pandora,
imeem and
Rhapsody to give you direct links to the songs and artists you're searching for. Rejoice! No longer are we limited to shoddy-quality live videos on
YouTube! But how long will it be before Google sets its sights on the music equivalent of YouTube? Lee
called this one a yawner -- but I think this might be the best of Google's newly-released features.