We didn’t see this one coming, and you’ll have to admit big G (after licking their wounds & releasing a customized homepage in early June) do not want Bing to get anywhere near their search hegemony…
The new Google search homepage (baptized Instant) includes G’s latest search enhancement: it shows results as you type (as seen on the video). Seems like big G realized one day that people type slowly, but read quickly, typically taking 300 milliseconds between keystrokes, but only a tenth of the time to glance at another part of the page. This means that us, Google users, can scan a results page while we type.
So why not modifying the search results page while we type? Google believes “Instant” can save 2-5 seconds per search, give better predictions while you search and the obvious: no need to hit the search button (or in our case, Enter).
And like many G products lately, there’s already a fan-made film out…
Seems like Instant is starting to roll-out to users on Google domains in the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Russia and only for Firefox, Chrome and IE8 (and us using Opera, well… we’re left out as usual). They say it won’t slow your Internet connection and plan to “automatically turn it off” if it does. But like the mobile version… we still don’t know when they’ll roll it out.
We’re loving this new search feature (although some complain it will distract their search queries!… turn it off then!), and now, we hope Bing “decision engine” will be the next to roll out something special…. if they can.
