At a recent media briefing, Google demonstrated its ‘Instant Pages’, a new feature that lets certain Web pages pop-up in any user’s Web browser almost instantaneously. It is also advertising a search feature for desktops that can analyze an image and retrieve relevant piece of information regarding it.
Can Google still be at the top of internet universe?
In this context, the company is making a concerted effort to take search in the speedy wireless world so as to attract a wider user base, slowly being eaten up social media sites, now easily accessible on the mobile devices.
Retaining its role as the prime gateway to data on the Web obviously holds the key for Google, which it well understands. Take a look at this piece of fact: It generated revenue of $29 billion primarily from search ads, last year, and you will know the gravity of the situation.
Some believe Google’s undisputed position at the heart of the vast internet universe is no more as safe as it previously was, especially as a new generation of mobile gadgets dramatically alters consumers’ browsing patterns and as rapidly growing online social networks like Twitter and Facebook emerge as more popular online hangouts than it.
A new version of Google mobile site
On its part, Microsoft has tried to set part Bing by incorporating data from over 500 million Facebook users, pushing its social search capabilities. When queried about the new set of social search features, rather lack of it, Google executives pointed to aspects like the ‘+1’ buttons that let users endorse webpages and see friends’ recommendations within their search results.
Advanced Instant Pages feature
The company stated its new and advanced Instant Pages feature could well shave off 2 seconds to 5 seconds from the time needed by a user for carrying a Web search and arriving at the desired result page. The technology is based on the technique of predicting the result that a user is most likely to click and then downloading that particular page automatically in the background. Google claims that every time the company can cut down even 40-50 milliseconds from the whole search process, users are inclined to search more and more.
According to Google, initially the Instant Pages feature will be made available as an add-on to its Chrome Web browser and that the company intended to make it accessible on mobile devices in the next few weeks..