This morning, Google CEO Eric Schmidt tweeted a hint as to what Google would unleash during today"s big announcement.
"I predict big things happening today at Google. We"re already fast.. fast is about to get faster."
What Schmidt meant to say was "instant." As pointed out by the Search Engine Roundtable, Google has shown off live search results. When you begin typing in your search criteria, Google will dynamically show you what your results would be if you were to submit the search at that moment. Of course, this feature can be turned off at any time.
What this new functionality means for Google is unclear. One thing is for sure--no other search engine can do this. That right there gives even more bragging rights to the world"s most popular search engine. It will be interesting to see if a similar search feature will make its way to mobile devices. We will know soon enough.
UPDATE: The new feature will be called Google Instant. You can read up on it at Google"s very own site.
- Before Google Instant, the typical searcher took more than 9 seconds to enter a search term, and we saw many examples of searches that took 30-90 seconds to type.
- Using Google Instant can save 2-5 seconds per search.
- If everyone uses Google Instant globally, we estimate this will save more than 3.5 billion seconds a day. That’s 11 hours saved every second.
- 15 new technologies contribute to Google Instant functionality.
If you"re interested in trying out Instant yourself then please visit Google"s Instant search page here.