For those of you who use Google, you might recall yesterday's bubbly Google logo that swept balls to and fro. (For those of you who use Yahoo, we look forward to seeing you come Thanksgiving, Mom and Dad!) It was all in anticipation for Google's new search feature, Google Instant, that, for better or for worse, displays the results as soon as you begin typing. It's fast. And very jumpy. Or, as Valleywag so eloquently put it, Google is now on crack. Give it a try. See for yourself. "Feelings of euphoria and weightlessness are normal. Do not be alarmed," Google soothes after you test out the new searchability.
Google Instant promises that it will "save 2-5 seconds per search," time you can now spend blinking, twitching, or glancing sideways for a moment.
How does it compare to Bing's "type-ahead keyword magic" selling point? Lance Ulanoff of PC World notes:
Naturally, I wanted to compare Google's new Instant Search magic to Microsoft Bing's relatively old type-ahead keyword magic. Google Instant, for now, only works when you're signed in and may be using some search history to intuit results. It combines type ahead with live results, while Bing only offers you a list of probable word matches. Still, the word matches in Bing are pretty solid, and if Google Instant is showing you a page you weren't interested in anyway, then what's the value in it?
For Google users, what does this mean? It means the "search" and "I'm feeling lucky" buttons, we would assume, are now useless. Speaking of which, did anyone actually ever use the "I'm feeling lucky button"? (Oh, besides you, Mom and Dad.)