Three months ago, I found some Google search shortcuts that trigger results from Google Dictionary and Google Translate. The keywords for Google Translate no longer work, but you can still add "en:en" before an English word to see the definition from Google Dictionary.
Google's results now include links to Wikipedia, Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster and Answers.com. Two of these sites (Dictionary.com and Answers.com) have been previously used to show definitions for each word of a query. They have been replaced by Google Dictionary and the feature has been removed when Google launched a new interface, two months ago.
Here's an example of query that triggers the special definition results: [en:en overcast].
Google has another special result that's displayed if you search for [define word] or [word definition]. This time, Google shows definitions from WordNet.
There's also a define: operator that shows definitions from WordNet, Wikipedia, glossaries and other web pages.
Gmail added one of the most frequently requested features: rich text signatures. If you go to the settings page, you can edit your signature and change text formatting, add links and images. You can only create a rich text signature if you enable rich formatting in the "compose mail" page.
"Some of you have tried your own solutions, including Greasemonkey scripts, browser plugins, and even using canned responses from Gmail Labs. Others have simply lived with frustration of not being able to change the colors or font size of your signature, or insert images and links. Either way, you'll be happy to know that today we're launching the ability to write your own rich text signatures right in Gmail," says Mark Knichel, from Google.
Another useful new feature lets you create distinct signatures for the email accounts you're using when sending messages. If you send mail from different addresses, it makes sense to have a distinct signature for each account.
Unfortunately, the new features only work in the desktop standard Web interface. "Currently, only the latest desktop version of Gmail supports rich text signatures and multiple signatures. The older version and HTML version of Gmail, along with the mobile versions, use a plain text version of your primary account's signature."
YouTube released a preview of the Google TV interface: it's called YouTube Leanback. "YouTube Leanback is all about letting you sit back, relax and be entertained. Videos tailored to your interests play as soon as you visit the site and they play in full screen and high definition, continuously. There's no need to click, search, or browse, unless you want to, of course. Watching YouTube becomes as easy as watching TV," suggests YouTube's blog.
By default, YouTube plays videos from your subscriptions, but you can also select a category to play popular comedy videos, short films, music videos, news, travel videos and more. The interface doesn't work with a mouse, as you can only use the arrow keys and Enter to skip a video, select a category, search, pause or resume a video. YouTube Leanback will work well with Google TV's remote control, but you can also install an application like Air Mouse on your mobile phone.
Leanback is not the first YouTube interface designed for TVs: there's also YouTube XL, but the interface isn't fluid and there are too many options that get in the way.
Google's services have a big advantage: a lot of mobile phones include applications for services like YouTube, Google Maps, Gmail, Google Search. Unfortunately, the native applications are rarely updated, so users miss the new features added to Google's services.
A good example is the YouTube application for iPhone, developed by Apple, which still uses 5-star ratings, doesn't support captions, annotations or search suggestions and offers a single sharing option: email. Google's YouTube application for Android is not much better, even if it's updated faster.
Web applications evolve faster, as they aren't updated only when a new version of iOS or Android is released. The latest update of the YouTube Mobile site shows that a web application can be almost as good as a native application, even when you're talking about a mobile phone.
"We launched YouTube on mobile devices in 2007 with about 1,000 videos available on the mobile site (m.youtube.com). While this suddenly opened up the possibility to access videos on the go, our site, mobile browsers and the hardware had limitations that prevented the mobile experience from keeping up with YouTube on the desktop. Today, more than ever, we know that you want to be able to find and access your favorite videos wherever you are. That's why we're rolling out an updated version of the mobile site," explains YouTube's blog.
The latest update adds features like search suggestions, replaces ratings with like/dislike buttons, adds the option to create playlists and to watch a high-quality version of a video even if you don't use WiFi. The site loads faster and it's easier to use on a touchscreen. "As we make improvements to Youtube.com, you’ll see them quickly follow on our mobile site, unlike native apps which are not updated as frequently."
YouTube Mobile can be accessed by visiting m.youtube.com on your phone. The new version only works if you have an iPhone or an Android phone and it's only available in English.
Google started to add links to related videos for search results from sites like eHow, Howcast, GameTrailers or Hulu. Google shows two additional videos from the same site below the main search result.
It's not the first time when Google tries to make the content of a site more discoverable. Google already shows sitelinks that highlight popular pages from a site, search boxes for site search, navigation breadcrumbs, related topics from discussion boards.
One of the most popular advanced search feature is phrase search. Google and other search engines let you find web pages that include the exact phrase you type. "By putting double quotes around a set of words, you are telling Google to consider the exact words in that exact order without any change," mentions Google's help center.
The nice thing about phrase search was that you didn't have to close the quotes. You could type ["Dual Polarization Antenna] and Google assumed that you forgot to close the quotes. This was especially useful if you changed your query by adding new words or if you typed the query using a virtual keyboard.
Unfortunately, the trick no longer works and you now have to close the quotes to use phrase search:
At some point, you could even enter queries like [Dual-Polarization-Antenna] and Google returned the same results as if you typed ["Dual Polarization Antenna"].
A Google employee has recently said that search engines have improved so much that people are surprised when they don't get good results. When Google has been launched, users were really surprised to see relevant results, even if they were much poorer than they are today.
When you search for [iPod], you expect that the first result is iPod's homepage. Google returns a different page (iTunes homepage) and doesn't even include the iPod homepage in the list of the top 10 search results.
Bing and Yahoo Search return much better results: iPod's homepage is the top result in Bing and the second result in Yahoo Search.
The most likely explanation why Google doesn't return the most relevant results is that apple.com/ipod used to redirect to apple.com/itunes, as you can see if you check Internet Archive. The most recent version of the page cached by the Internet Archive is from October 2009 and it still redirected to the iTunes homepage.
