Well it seems another day another google tweak. Is is me or is google stirring the pot more frequently these days, maybe I am just getting older/slower and the world is getting faster?

Google instant is had added preemption to search. Philosophically it feels a little odd, as you begin to type letters into the search box, suggestions pop up, that’s right starting from the first letter. (It’s true that google weren’t the first to do this). What’s odd about the experience is that as it’s so fast to anticipate what you are about to type in a fair amount of tangential chaos ensues.

Paradoxically, in the process of instantly suggesting what google thinks you are searching for, it’s really easy to get side tracked by the suggested sites.

Say for example you want to search real estate in Morris Plains, this is what happens now.

As soon as you type in “m” for morris the google splash page swaps to the search results page.

Formerly you would type your entire keyword phrase into the search box and hit the button marked”google search” to be taken to the results page.

This button has really become redundant now, the first letter being typed initiates the change to the search interface.

Funnily enough when I was thinking about Google Instant, I was wondering how they were going to get you to see their ads, if the instant results were to be displayed on the ad-less google homepage. I guess they figured that one out pretty quick!

So typing the first letter does a couple of things, it swaps the pages from the ad-less homepage to the ad laden results page, and also start to anticipate what you are searching for.

Hmm, I am searching for Morris Plains real estate, but it thinks I want mapquest…

Ok, the second letter, and google thinks that I want to look at Moma…

Adding the next of letters brings up some Morris options…getting there…

As we move to the final phrase I was initially searching for, it anticipates pretty well…

Though not totally new as a concept, google does feel responsive and refresh. However, what I am not convinced about is if this is going to same me much time, because I could have easily visited the Moma site, typing in “A” brings me to amazon, “E” to ebay…I don’t need more distractions! Perhaps when the novelty has worn off it will, in the long run save a few seconds here and there, and over our net lifetime that might be useful.

Serge Brin, one half of google’s founders said that he wants google to be the third part of your brain, for now, the anticipatory tangental nature of the suggestions feels more like my grandmother rattling through every name she can think of before she gets to actual one of the great grand daughter front of her!

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