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Google Roundup

Google keeps pumping out new (and not so new) functions so fast that Ars is resorting to a roundup just to keep you in the loop. Hang on for a whirlwind tour.

Since the Orbiting HQ is brimming with helpful investigative journalists who wish nothing more than to keep you abreast of what's going on at the intersection of technology and culture, we're here today to discuss a few of the things Google is up to. Or might be up to, in some cases. These days, the big G is a far cry from the simple search interface that launched a thousand ships.

Related links

Let's start off with a bit of a copycat move. You may have heard of Y!Q, Yahoo's contextual search project that has spent the last year or so in beta status. Google has rolled out its own contextual search tool, and while there are many similarities to the Yahoo version, the differences may be more telling.

In Y!Q, you insert some javascript code into your HTML, and then designate areas of the page to trigger the contextual searches. This is done through class attributes of <div> and <span> tags, and allows rather granular control over how you want to organize the searches. When your users click on a "related search" link, the results pop up in a floating div block, and clicking on the result links brings up the content in a new window. It's a multistep process to set this up, and the tool behaves quite differently from a regular web search.

Adding a Google Related Links element is a bit more straightforward. Choose a few parameters by clicking on radio buttons, copy the resulting single block of code into your HTML code, and you're done. What you gain in simplicity, you lose in flexibility; the contextual search looks at your entire page to figure out what to present. And when you click on the suggested searches, you get the regular Google search results page, loaded into the same window. It's easy to use, and behaves like any other Google search would.

Do you need any of this? There's no money in it for webmasters who add either Y!Q or GRL to their sites--at least not yet--and all they do is give your users more ways to get away from your site. And if you're running some kind of aggregator site to begin with, there are better ways to pull in the links you present. Still, there's some novelty factor here, and maybe hobby webmonkeys can get some kicks out of these toys.

Google Maps API v2

Moving right along, there's a new version of the Google Maps API available, imaginatively named "Version 2." It's a public beta now (but of course!), and expected to replace the original version entirely in the next month or so. Not having developed anything with Google Maps, others may be better equipped to determine which of the new features are useful, but a few general improvements stand out even to a pagan like me.

The new version is said to sport cleaner code, which "improves performance and stability in fundamental ways based on the feedback of many API sites." Memory leaks have been reduced and a method call lets you explicitly clean up your app's memory usage. That's certainly good thing in my book. The Javascript download of v2 is half the size of its predecessor, and the map interface is now extensible so you can redesign the controls and even the map types. Finally, there's a GLog.write() call that can be used in place of alert() calls to make debugging your app a little easier.

But the fun doesn't stop there! The license agreement has been updated too, and now Google promises to warn you 90 days in advance if any mandatory ads will be added to the API. Previously, such a change could have been made at any time with no warning. And rather than a limit on page views, v2 allows unlimited views as long as you notify Google a few days before publishing Goole Maps applications to sites with very high traffic (at least 500,000 page views a day).

The new version is expected to be 99 percent backwards compatible, so only minimal changes to existing applications should be necessary. However, v2 will take over as the default API if no major bugs are discovered in the next few weeks.

Music, music, music!

Forbes has talked to a research firm that thinks Google is about to launch a music store, potentially one to rival even iTunes in scope. Caris analyst Mark Stahlman says that "the music industry is broadly unhappy with the fixed pricing and lack of subscription options at the market-leading iTunes Music Store and likely to support alternative services," which then would explain why Google held a meeting last week with a number of music industry bigwigs.

The Google music service would ostensibly offer DRM-protected downloads, but at a variable price rather than the fixed US$0.99/song of iTMS. File this one under "maybe," since organizing the world's content is indeed part of Google's mission statement, but keep in mind that one meeting does not make a new business (usually...) and any such music store is likely to be a good while away from actually launching.

Directory of feeds

If you're using the personalized Google homepage at all, you may have noticed the clunky interface for adding new content blocks or widgets to the page. Well, there's a new sheriff in town, and you now get a colorful little preview of anything you might want to add. The content instances seem to be sorted by popularity, or possibly something PageRanky, and then divided into categories such as news, finance, fun & games, and communication. Naturally, the directory is still searchable.

Google Pages micro-review

Let me end the roundup with some not-quite-news: Google saw fit to invite me to the closed beta (i.e., no new signups) of the Google Page Creator. Just for kicks and to give it a test run, I've written this article up inside the Page Creator, and I have some opinions on it already.

First, the interface is pretty slick. It's easy to pick a layout and a color scheme, and then just insert the appropriate content in neatly labelled input boxes. Think PowerPoint, only stripped down to the bare essentials. I can see web-illiterate users getting some mileage out of the simplicity here, especially since it's so easy to publish the pages you make. All it takes is a single mouse click, which pushes the document out to the "live" Web and then tells you to check out the live page or tell your friends about what you made. How friendly.

Will I use this thing again? Not on your life, unless I'm given plausible assurance that the bugs have been worked out. A minor gripe is the need to hit "enter" after adding a URL for a new link, because that's the only way to enable the "OK" button. Slightly worse is the tendency for the text caret to get hung occasionally after running over onto a new line, and then I need to click somewhere--anywhere--to unhang it again.

Oh, and you're supposed to be able to edit the raw HTML if you like. So I tried to add a Related Links box, just for the metacity of it all, but it's a no go.

But worst of all is the processing overhead. Whenever I type more than a couple of characters into the app, my CPU usage hits 100 percent and it takes longer and longer for the text to catch up with my typing, the further into the document I get. There's clearly room for improvement, and I simply can't stand working with something as maddeningly slow as this. And that's on a 2GHz P4 with a gig of RAM. Pffft!

*taps fingers on desk, waiting for last sentence to appear*

That's it; I'm outta here.