Derrick
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In a Google Blog update on Friday, Google fellow Amit Singhal discussed the various improvements Google had implemented in its search engine over the past week.
One of the most prominent features is the inclusion of real-time search. When choosing ‘Latest’ in the search options users can now see page updates relevant to their search term as they occur.
Google has also struck deals with a number of social networking sites, including Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, FriendFeed, and Jaiku. This means that social updates relevant to the search topic will also appear in real-time. There has also been an addition to the Google Trends page, which now displays the top ten trending search topics in real-time.
Whether or not these features will prove useful or simply annoying remains to be seen.
Challenges for Google’s real-time search
A rather interesting look at how spam bots, libel lawsuits, and social deviants may emerge as a result of the new real-time feature was discussed by Rae Hoffman of OutSpokenMedia. Basically, Hoffman conducted some experiments to see how the real-time results could be manipulated.
By tweeting about a trending topic – Miley Cyrus was used in one of Hoffman’s examples – Hoffman was able to offer concert tickets, a phone number and a link to a webpage right at the top of Google’s real-time results. It probably won’t be long before we see a large number of spam posts scrolling past in the real-time results, rather rendering the point of the feature useless.
Online attacks
In the case of libel and slanderous behaviour, anyone with a few Twitter accounts and a nasty disposition can effectively launch a campaign against a person or company they dislike, with minute-by-minute real-time negativity that’s near impossible to trace.
Whilst adults can exercise discretion over the information they see online, children are far more likely to fall for online scams. In a far more insidious example, Hoffman discussed how sexual predators can lure young children into contacting them using a topic such as ‘Sesame Street.’
Currently, there is no way to disable the real-time results, and even if possible it would be far from foolproof. Concerned parents will need to constantly monitor their children’s Internet usage from home to ensure they aren’t bypassing parental control settings and exposing themselves to the vast milieu of unsavoury content on the Web.
However, children may also have access to the Internet through a school or a friend. One can never be sure exactly what kind of content impressionable young minds will find themselves exposed to.
Real time search results has great potential for delivering on hot news topics as details emerge, but will probably be abused as well. It will be interesting to see how Google copes with these issues as they arise.
One of the most prominent features is the inclusion of real-time search. When choosing ‘Latest’ in the search options users can now see page updates relevant to their search term as they occur.
Google has also struck deals with a number of social networking sites, including Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, FriendFeed, and Jaiku. This means that social updates relevant to the search topic will also appear in real-time. There has also been an addition to the Google Trends page, which now displays the top ten trending search topics in real-time.
Whether or not these features will prove useful or simply annoying remains to be seen.
Challenges for Google’s real-time search
A rather interesting look at how spam bots, libel lawsuits, and social deviants may emerge as a result of the new real-time feature was discussed by Rae Hoffman of OutSpokenMedia. Basically, Hoffman conducted some experiments to see how the real-time results could be manipulated.
By tweeting about a trending topic – Miley Cyrus was used in one of Hoffman’s examples – Hoffman was able to offer concert tickets, a phone number and a link to a webpage right at the top of Google’s real-time results. It probably won’t be long before we see a large number of spam posts scrolling past in the real-time results, rather rendering the point of the feature useless.
Online attacks
In the case of libel and slanderous behaviour, anyone with a few Twitter accounts and a nasty disposition can effectively launch a campaign against a person or company they dislike, with minute-by-minute real-time negativity that’s near impossible to trace.
Whilst adults can exercise discretion over the information they see online, children are far more likely to fall for online scams. In a far more insidious example, Hoffman discussed how sexual predators can lure young children into contacting them using a topic such as ‘Sesame Street.’
Currently, there is no way to disable the real-time results, and even if possible it would be far from foolproof. Concerned parents will need to constantly monitor their children’s Internet usage from home to ensure they aren’t bypassing parental control settings and exposing themselves to the vast milieu of unsavoury content on the Web.
However, children may also have access to the Internet through a school or a friend. One can never be sure exactly what kind of content impressionable young minds will find themselves exposed to.
Real time search results has great potential for delivering on hot news topics as details emerge, but will probably be abused as well. It will be interesting to see how Google copes with these issues as they arise.