I'm revising my Google presentation for a group that wants a session tomorrow, and I've come across some interesting brand-new Google developments that I thought people might want to be aware of.
For some time now, Google has been offering "personalized search results" - i.e. Google knows that you're located in Canada, and that you often visit certain web sites. It gets this information from your history, if you have an iGoogle account, but even if you don't, it gets the info from cookies it places on your computer. So for example, if Google knows that you often visit Epicurious.com, then maybe the next time you search for a recipe, results from Epicurious will appear higher in your result list. The upsides to personalization are obvious, but there are potential down sides too. This article from Lifehacker (and the accompanying video) has a good explanation of the issue, and offers some tips for searching without this sort of personalization (which you will likely want to turn off if you're looking for grey literature for a client, for example).
"What do you love?" is a new Google meta-search tool that searches across all Google's tools. So enter something like "wine," and you'll get search engine results, books, articles, blog posts, maps to nearby wine shops, and lots of other stuff from Google's various services.
The other interesting Google development lately is Google Plus, a social network that seems to be Google's latest attempt to compete with Facebook. This Lifehacker article provides an overview.
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