Nov
27
Last week Google unveiled Google SearchWiki, the first major change in ages. So is this the search engine that anyone can edit? No. Not quite that! Actually when you boil it down, this half-baked attempt for Google to go Web 2.0 is one big disappointment, no matter what Google has to say.
Google SearchWiki lets you personalise your search results by moving individual entries up or down the list, or deleting them altogether. Only you will be able to see these changes and only when you are logged into your Google account. Nothing Web 2.0 about that is there?
You can actually add comments to your favourite sites on Google SearchWiki, but for anyone else to see them, they must be logged into their Google acount click a link hidden at the very bottom of the SearchWiki page. The trouble is that not all searches will have comments of course and getting a message saying no comments found is bound to get tiring in no time.
But the worst is still to come: you cannot edit or delete the comments that other people make, but merely vote them up or down. So much for being a wiki! If this were a wiki, people would be able to make changes to each other’s contributions, discuss the edits, revert to older versions and all that jazz.
As things stand, as ReadWriteWeb rightly points out, Google SearchWiki is all open to abuse:
Try a search for McDonald’s, for example. There are two notes - one from some random web designer that’s spamming the “wiki” with a link to his page, the other from some joker testing the obscenity filter. Neither can be removed, edited, nothing. We presume that the McDonald’s PR department has seen this - but is there anything that even they can do about it? Apparently not. Wait until it’s you that has things you don’t like appended to the page just one click away from page 1 Google for your name - what are you going to do about it?
So is there any hope at all for SearchWiki, beyond a glorified bookmarking service or a dirty way to get back at people or websites you don’t like? Hopefully yes. If Google pay any attention to all the negative comments buzzing around the web they’ll be taking this one back to the drawingboard and reworking it into a the collaborative search engine of everyone’s dreams.
Am I being too optimistic?
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