May 11, 2006

Google Shows New Services in Battle of Search Engines

The New York Times

By SAUL HANSELL

Google has focused the Co-op service on two areas, health and local guides, and the handful of participating sites includes the Mayo Clinic and OpenTable, a restaurant reservation service.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., May 10 — As it works to extend its lead over Microsoft and Yahoo in the Web search wars, Google is asking its millions of users to help. The company introduced several services on Wednesday that draw on contributions from users.

"The first rule of the Internet is people have a lot to say," , Google's chief executive, told reporters at a daylong presentation here.

Google's new efforts are an answer to Yahoo, its main search rival, which has tried to differentiate its products by adding social features. MyWeb from Yahoo, for example, allows users to identify and label interesting Web pages and share them with their friends.

On Wednesday, Google introduced a beta, or test service, called Google Co-op. Eventually it will allow Google users to mark Web pages they like and associate each page with certain topics. For now the service is mainly of use to large organizations, which can mark their own sites with labels and submit them to Google to make relevant information easier to find in search results.

Initially, Google has focused the Co-op service on two areas, health and local guides, and the handful of participating sites includes the Mayo Clinic and OpenTable, a restaurant reservation service. In several weeks it will create an easy way for individuals to label any page on the Web, and it will add more topics like autos and consumer electronics.

Users will be able to "subscribe" to the Web sites flagged by certain organizations or people, so those sites will be featured prominently when they conduct Web searches.

Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president for search products, said in an interview that a chief purpose of the new product was to help improve Google's main search by determining which sites gathered the most interest from users.

"A little bit of human involvement goes a long way," Ms. Mayer said.

As on social networking sites like MySpace, users of the Co-op service will be able to create a page with a profile that describes their interests and expertise.

Google also said it would introduce a product next week called , which allows users to record information they have found on a series of Web pages. They can choose to make their research public, to send it to friends and to have it included in Google's index of Web pages.

"If someone has planned a great Hawaiian vacation with great research into snorkel boats, they should be able to share it," Ms. Mayer said.

The company also introduced Google Trends, a way to see how often people are searching for certain terms on its site and where in the world those searches are popular. And it said it would start testing a new version of its software that allows very small programs, like a weather indicator, to be placed anywhere on the user's computer screen. Similar software is already offered by Apple Computer and Yahoo.

In broader comments, Mr. Schmidt said that despite the company's expansion in many areas, from wireless Internet access to online chat, its core focus was still on Internet search and search-related advertising.

"We have more people working on search than ever before," he said. "You will see better search, more personal search and more international search." Mr. Schmidt added that the company recently analyzed how its employees were spending their time and found that it was not meeting its target of devoting 70 percent of its effort to search. As a result, Google is encouraging its engineers to shift their energies back to search projects.

Ms. Mayer said Google was working on a new design for its main screen of search results that will be more interactive than its current basic list of 10 results. The design will incorporate the same technology used for the company's mapping and e-mail services that makes Web pages more interactive so they act more like computer programs. She also said Google hoped to integrate more types of information, like video clips, in its Web search results.

The company took pains to emphasize its growing international scope. It now offers searches in 116 languages and sells advertising in 43 languages. In discussions with reporters after the presentation, , Google's co-founder and president for products, discussed one of its more controversial international moves, the introduction of a search engine in China that complies with laws of that nation requiring it to censor certain topics.

Mr. Page said that he was comfortable that Google had followed its own motto: "Don't be evil."

"We are not taking actions we believe are bad," he said, adding that he believed that Google's entry into China might have a positive impact by encouraging a discussion of Chinese policy.

"A lot more attention is being paid to the issue now than before we made the decision," he said.