surfingdemon
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http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2004-10-14-google-desktop_x.htm
By Jefferson Graham, USA TODAY
Posted 10/14/2004
The search wars have moved to the next dimension — your computer desktop.
In a move that beats competitors Yahoo, Microsoft, America Online and Ask Jeeves to the starting gate, Internet search giant Google (GOOG) on Thursday announced a program enhancement that searches Web pages plus e-mails, pictures, music and other documents on your computer's hard drive.
The free program can find items on your C: drive with a speed not seen before. Web analysts call Google's innovation the most significant new Internet technology in years.
"What they've done is pretty astounding," says Charlene Li, an analyst with market tracker Forrester Research. "It moves Google off the Web and into what was Microsoft's territory. Now you can do all your searching in one stop."
Google says bringing search to the desktop was the number one request from its users.
"They said, 'This Web search is wonderful. Why can't I search my computer the same way?'" says Marissa Mayer, Google's director of consumer web products.
Although the new program can be used exclusively offline to probe hard drives, Google designed it to meld with its online search engine. Google.com visitors who have the program installed on their computer will see a "desktop" tab above the search engine toolbar and all their search results will include a section devoted to the hard drive in addition to the Web.
Google, the Internet's most-used search engine, hopes to profit from desktop search by keeping more users at Google and expanding the number of Web searches, where it can display more ads.
In addition, after downloading the desktop application at desktop.google.com, users track their files within the main Google page — and many queries will come back with small text ads on the side.
There was a privacy outcry over Google's advertising practices when the company introduced its web-based e-mail program, Gmail, earlier this year. That's because Google's computers inserted ads in e-mails based on the written text. An e-mail to a relative about a trip to Hawaii, for instance, might produce ads for tour operators and hotels.
"Google clearly learned from their mistakes," says Li.
She says advertising in Google's desktop search is based on queries that users type in. "You're putting it in there, instead of the computer," she says. "If you don't like it, turn off desktop search."
Google is emphasizing that the desktop search program doesn't provide a peephole into the hard drive, even when the product connects with the online search engine.
"Google does not know what happens when the hard drive is searched," Mayer said.
Pam Dixon, executive director for the World Privacy Forum, said she will withhold judgment until she makes a thorough review. "The key question will be if this thing ever phones home to the mother ship," she said.
The move to desktop search is a top priority for search firms. Microsoft has been making lots of noise about desktop search being a key component of its 2006 Windows XP replacement, code-named Longhorn, and America Online is expected to launch a desktop search tool for a new Internet browser next month. Ask Jeeves says it will add desktop search by the end of the year.
A variation of desktop search are the "personal," search tools that have been introduced in the last weeks by Ask Jeeves, Amazon's A9 and Yahoo. They let users store and track searched Web sites in categories.
Danny Sullivan, editor of the SearchEngineWatch.com online newsletter, says Google's desktop search is in fact, "personal," because it also tracks the Web sites users visit, and lists them during a search.
"Searching your history makes your Web searching better, because it helps you go back to where you were," Sullivan says.
He says Google's desktop search is simply "no comparison" to the Windows or Outlook search tool that many use. "They are so rudimentary and slow," he said. " This goes inside the files, rather than just looking for the names of the files. It's light years ahead."
In the overall scheme of the Search Wars, Sullivan believes Google gets a huge headstart over the competition.
"This is an area many people thought would be a Microsoft win, and that people might not use Google any more," he says. "But Google jumped in before everybody with a really compelling product. By the time others come out with their products, if it's not in a week or two, people will be entrenched at Google."
The desktop application is only available for Windows computers. Mayer says she hopes to offer Apple Macintosh support in the future, along with the ability to search Adobe PDF files.
By Jefferson Graham, USA TODAY
Posted 10/14/2004
The search wars have moved to the next dimension — your computer desktop.
In a move that beats competitors Yahoo, Microsoft, America Online and Ask Jeeves to the starting gate, Internet search giant Google (GOOG) on Thursday announced a program enhancement that searches Web pages plus e-mails, pictures, music and other documents on your computer's hard drive.
The free program can find items on your C: drive with a speed not seen before. Web analysts call Google's innovation the most significant new Internet technology in years.
"What they've done is pretty astounding," says Charlene Li, an analyst with market tracker Forrester Research. "It moves Google off the Web and into what was Microsoft's territory. Now you can do all your searching in one stop."
Google says bringing search to the desktop was the number one request from its users.
"They said, 'This Web search is wonderful. Why can't I search my computer the same way?'" says Marissa Mayer, Google's director of consumer web products.
Although the new program can be used exclusively offline to probe hard drives, Google designed it to meld with its online search engine. Google.com visitors who have the program installed on their computer will see a "desktop" tab above the search engine toolbar and all their search results will include a section devoted to the hard drive in addition to the Web.
Google, the Internet's most-used search engine, hopes to profit from desktop search by keeping more users at Google and expanding the number of Web searches, where it can display more ads.
In addition, after downloading the desktop application at desktop.google.com, users track their files within the main Google page — and many queries will come back with small text ads on the side.
There was a privacy outcry over Google's advertising practices when the company introduced its web-based e-mail program, Gmail, earlier this year. That's because Google's computers inserted ads in e-mails based on the written text. An e-mail to a relative about a trip to Hawaii, for instance, might produce ads for tour operators and hotels.
"Google clearly learned from their mistakes," says Li.
She says advertising in Google's desktop search is based on queries that users type in. "You're putting it in there, instead of the computer," she says. "If you don't like it, turn off desktop search."
Google is emphasizing that the desktop search program doesn't provide a peephole into the hard drive, even when the product connects with the online search engine.
"Google does not know what happens when the hard drive is searched," Mayer said.
Pam Dixon, executive director for the World Privacy Forum, said she will withhold judgment until she makes a thorough review. "The key question will be if this thing ever phones home to the mother ship," she said.
The move to desktop search is a top priority for search firms. Microsoft has been making lots of noise about desktop search being a key component of its 2006 Windows XP replacement, code-named Longhorn, and America Online is expected to launch a desktop search tool for a new Internet browser next month. Ask Jeeves says it will add desktop search by the end of the year.
A variation of desktop search are the "personal," search tools that have been introduced in the last weeks by Ask Jeeves, Amazon's A9 and Yahoo. They let users store and track searched Web sites in categories.
Danny Sullivan, editor of the SearchEngineWatch.com online newsletter, says Google's desktop search is in fact, "personal," because it also tracks the Web sites users visit, and lists them during a search.
"Searching your history makes your Web searching better, because it helps you go back to where you were," Sullivan says.
He says Google's desktop search is simply "no comparison" to the Windows or Outlook search tool that many use. "They are so rudimentary and slow," he said. " This goes inside the files, rather than just looking for the names of the files. It's light years ahead."
In the overall scheme of the Search Wars, Sullivan believes Google gets a huge headstart over the competition.
"This is an area many people thought would be a Microsoft win, and that people might not use Google any more," he says. "But Google jumped in before everybody with a really compelling product. By the time others come out with their products, if it's not in a week or two, people will be entrenched at Google."
The desktop application is only available for Windows computers. Mayer says she hopes to offer Apple Macintosh support in the future, along with the ability to search Adobe PDF files.
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