i202 Fall 2009 School of Information, UC Berkeley

Google introduced a number of new features today, most notably real-time updates and searching by an uploaded photo. Real-time updates means that Twitter and Facebook statuses will immediately feed to Google search. This makes for an interesting synergy between Twitter and Google. This article in the New York Times quotes Twitter co-founder saying "We’re not good at relevancy right now, and they are,” which adds an interesting element onto Zhanna's talks today about what features they are considering for Twitter, particularly in terms of how Twitter is not good at helping people find content right now. 

Another interesting feature is Google Goggles, which allows you to search using a photo you send from your phone. One use for this is searching for information around your location, which I imagine would only be enhanced by using geolocation. The article suggests that a useful application (once the technology improves) could be uploading a picture of someone whose name you don't remember.