May 11, 2006
Google Introduces Health Search Engine
Google on Wednesday at its annual Google Press Day announced several new search enhancements including a service that lets users sign up for health information at no cost, USA Today reports.
The service, called Google Co-op, lets users subscribe to health information from several organizations including the CDC, the Mayo Clinic and Kaiser Permanente. The search engine is expected to be able to categorize search results by treatment, research papers, symptoms, news and alternative treatments. It also will be able to divide data depending on whether users are health professionals or patients
Google introduced several new search enhancements, including a way to subscribe to health research from experts and tools that let people save portions of websites in a pop-up box that can be shared via e-mails.
The theme, says analyst Allen Weiner at research firm Gartner, was Google "moving the playing field back to its core strength — search — and all about fearing Microsoft (MSFT) as a threat."
In the past two weeks, MSN and Yahoo overhauled their search advertising programs in a bid to more effectively compete with Google. And Microsoft says it will feature desktop search in the new edition of its Windows software, Vista, expected in early 2007.
Google co-founder Larry Page said that 98% of what will exist in 10 years "has yet to be done, and we won't get there by looking at what other companies are doing."
New tools:
•Google Co-op. Users can sign up at www.google.com/coop/directory to subscribe to free health information from several organizations, including the federal Centers for Disease Control, the Mayo Clinic and Kaiser Permanente. Their tips on the best health data will show up in search results. Google Co-op also offers city guide information for more than 300 cities, including London and New York. Co-op is designed to let organizations label Web pages relevant to their areas of expertise. "We're going to take the Tom Sawyer view and see how our users paint the fence," said Google Vice President Marissa Mayer.
•Desktop 4. An extension of Google's tool to search for items on your computer now comes with more than 100 "Gadgets" — little widgets that do things such as list friends' birthdays, show videos and play music.
•Google Trends. Lets users examine searches for market trends. For example, a search for "surfers" will show that most searches come from Hawaii and Australia and link to news stories about surfing.
"For the first time ever, Google is making it possible to sift through billions of search queries from around the world to see what people are thinking about," said Mayer. Trends is targeted primarily toward marketers.
•Google Notebook. Available next week, it lets people save a portion of a website to a box that can be shared with others. Google showed an example of shopping for shoes, saving a certain pair and writing a note about it, then sending it to friends. The tool works in conjunction with Desktop 4.
Don't forget that Google Calendar is quite functional and popular.