Nowadays, you look up a book on a library computer screen, but you usually have to go fetch it on foot.
Until recently, we’ve had the same situation with searching the Web. You could look up a Web page using Google and Bing, but you still had to go fetch it.
But that’s about to change. In the last couple of weeks, both Google and Microsoft have added new features that try to spare you that last step. Now when you search at Google.com or Bing.com,
you don’t just get a list of Web pages that match your search. Off to
the right, where the search results page used to be empty, you now see
actual information about the subject of your search, carefully packed
into a new, concise, attractive panel.
Microsoft calls this panel the Snapshot. Google calls it the Knowledge
Graph, even though it doesn’t look or work anything like a graph. In
both cases, you get this “Is this the information you desired, master?”
panel only when you search for well-known people, places and things.
On Google, for example, the Graph panel displays a tiny dossier —
usually drawn from Wikipedia — when you search for a well-known person
like Martha Stewart, Benjamin Franklin, Barney the Dinosaur or James
Cameron. You get a capsule description, birth and death dates, spouse
and children, awards, education, best-known works (books or movies, for
example) and latest Google Plus post, if the person has a Google Plus
account. (Benjamin Franklin, Barney and James Cameron don’t.)
You get similar panels when you search a movie title (release date,
director, composer, screenplay, awards, cast); book title (date, author,
characters, genres, sequels); band (dates of activity, home state,
members, record companies, song and album lists); city, state and
country names (map, area, local time, population, points of interest);
movie stars (the usual bio info plus net worth). Also landmarks, sports
teams, art masterpieces and astronomical bodies.
The information is drawn from Wikipedia, the CIA World Factbook,
Freebase and Google Books. Google says that in all, the Graph database
contains summaries for 500 million entries.
That might seem like a lot. But Google is correct when it describes
today’s Graph as a “baby step.” For example, the panel doesn’t appear
when you search for hotels, restaurants, corporations, events or
fictional characters like Odysseus and Santa Claus. (Oh dear — did I
just ruin it for millions of children? It’s true, kids — there is no
Odysseus.)
When it does appear, the Graph panel serves two other very useful
purposes. First, it appears when you search for something that has
multiple meanings, like “peanuts” (the nut or the cartoon?), “Chicago”
(the town or band?) or “pogue” (iconoclastic technology columnist or
Irish rock band?).
Second, the bottom of the panel reveals what other, similar searches
might interest you, based on the search behavior of fellow Googlephiles.
If you search for one snarky TV hit comedy, this feature might tip you
off to others you might like.
Microsoft is scheduled to introduce its similar Snapshot feature on
Thursday. It may take a couple of weeks before everybody sees it.
Here again, the Snapshot panel appears to the right of the standard
results list. It’s like Google’s Graph, but with a different focus: it
appears only when you’re trying to spend money. It pops up for
restaurants (hours, ratings, reservation links); movies (trailer,
length, rating, plot, links to reviews, director and cast); hotels,
events, bands and so on.
Sometimes the Snapshot appears fully formed with the relevant details
for your search. Other times, you have to point to the > mark that
appears beside an item in the main search results list; the Snapshot
changes to show the details of just that item.
Bing isn’t nearly as enthusiastic when you aren’t looking for
information related to spending. For example, searching for a famous
person might yield only the date of birth and (in the case of current
online celebs) number of Twitter followers — but no photo, list of works
and so on.
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