Google in Quotes and gala opening of the Information Retrieval Casino
I’m not sure if this is new or whether I’m flogging a dead horse that I’ve somehow failed to notice for several months, lying in the corner of the room with its awful grin and rotten hooves and swelling like a ghastly chestnut piñata stuffed with the putrid fruit of Thanatos… I’ve lost my thread.
Oh, here it is: Google in Quotes is another great product of Google Labs. It lets you place two public figures side-by-side and compare what they’ve said about anything you like. It’s preloaded with notable dignitary collections from several countries (happily, Boris Johnson makes the list in the UK) and a selection of suggested topics, but you can also mix up your own pundit pairings and throw any keyword you like at them. The speakers, quotes and suggested topics are all datamined mechanically from the Google News datacolliery.
There’s also a pleasing ’spin’ button that generates a new set of quotes in the style of a fruit machine, which I think all sensible adults would agree is the way forward for web interfaces. Actually it might be inspired by the similar way in which the iPhone handles web form elements - I confidently predict that gambling interfaces will dominate 2009; I propose Poker News, in which breaking stories gently scraped from the BBC are delivered in hands of five and pay out BIG MONEY* in the event of thematic correlation, e.g. two Boris Johnsons and three Post Office robberies for a full house, or a royal flush of racist goofs from Prince Philip or his grandson. Blogger’s Blackjack, RSS Roulette and so on and so forth, feel free to hold forth in the comments area with your own suggestions and together we can build a terrible future.
Meanwhile, there’s http://labs.google.com/inquotes/
*Tokens redeemable in information. Terms apply.
March 23rd, 2009 at 11:11 am
It’s an interesting resource, but it’s been around for a while actually; I blogged about it back in September last year (http://tinyurl.com/43s2oc) and again a month later.
I do agree with you that it’s a really interesting resource, and they’ve increased the number of UK politicians considerably. Interestingly they’ve also swopped Cameron and Brown to opposite sides of the screen as the default option. Wonder why!
March 23rd, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Thanks, Phil. In light of this evident tardiness on my part I believe I’d like to play the “new baby” card, which I notice is becoming a little worn around the edges.
April 10th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Thanks for this - ive never actually heard of this tool and im always looking for quotes with which to appear smarter in front of my work colleagues! (Nice to see you using Chrome!)
June 30th, 2009 at 2:11 am
Very nice resource. Google never ceases to amaze. The next step is to allow the selection of any two characters, not necessarily pre-loaded ones.
Thanks for the tip…