Oh, It's Google's SearchWiki

I saw the new SearchWiki features in Google’s main search UI and thought something was going wrong with a Firefox plugin! In the past, Google’s main search page updates have been smaller and less feature addition, more interface tweak. This is a whole new deal. Watch the official video to see how the new features work.

Looking at all the comments on a search for “searchwiki” you can see some varied first reactions. User Brandon makes the frighteningly valid point, “Dude I can’t delete my comment.” The SearchWiki intro video makes it seem like you can leave private notes for yourself, but upon testing, the comments form submit button indeed reads, “Make a public comment.”

I’ve seen comparisons to Digg and of course Wikia Search, but this feature, in the path of searching, feels more like a Delicious-style addition since it’s useful to the user only if they return to the same search (Google claims that SearchWiki activity will not effect other users’ searches). In fact, Google will hopefully steal some other tricks from Delicious, such as private notes/comments. Better yet, I wish it were integrated with Delicious…oh, wait, right it was Microsoft that was supposed to buy Yahoo! Oh well…

One usability issue I noticed was that when you want to reorder the results, you can press the up-arrow icon to mark and move that result up. However, hitting the down-arrow icon un-marks the result and sends it to the bottom of the page. So, to reorder you can only move items up (imagine a Netflix queue like that!). The small line in the icon is probably too subtle to be understood by users and it is problematic combining the marking and reordering actions inconsistently. How about a star (like Google Reader) to mark the result and then the arrows for reordering (maybe with some ajax drag and drop love to sweeten it up)?

What do you think of this new googly googleness? Did it freak you out when you saw your good ol’ search page had changed? Will you even take the time to try it out?

FriendFeeding: How to Stay Afloat

Behold the aggregator with the mostest: FriendFeed! After using this service since it’s earliest public beta, I have grown to enjoy the efficiency of FriendFeed for discovering new content as well as keeping track of friends and those I follow online. Here’s a quick rundown of how I use the beast.

Conversation is King

The first thing I do when I fire up FriendFeed, either on my iPhone or via browser, is click on the “Me” link, then the “Comments + Likes” tab, and finally the “Comments” link to show only comments I’ve made on entries. I look to see if anyone has responded to my comments. For the time being, human interaction trumps information consumption for me, so any dialogue happening on FF is where I like to start.

Next up, I check out the “Me” page to see if anybody has posted a comment or liked my entries, since that’s another place dialogue can occur. If I don’t know a person who has commented or liked my items, I’ll check out their account to see if there’s value for me there.

Here’s something great about FF: you can respond to tweets on FF and post it back to Twitter. If the recipient is on FF, they can keep commenting on the original FF entry and you can then see the thread compiled in one place. Twitter is really crappy for following a conversation thread, so FF can help there.

Sifting For Gold

I then proceed to my lists. I’ve got a list called “Best” for people I actually know that I want to filter out of the noise and interact with. A note on liking: I like liberally! If I enjoy the entry, I like it. If I want to save it for later, I like it. I never go back and un-like. This is drive-by interaction - it’s all about speed consumption.

I’ve got a list for django community folks called “Djangos” - the idea there is to filter out users who post content specific to a topic I’m interested in. This makes for easier reading and also helps me catch links, tweets, and posts about my favorite subjects.

My “Good” list is just one level of filtering on my “Home” feed, which contains all those I subscribe to.

How I Learned to Love My Noisy Friends

My last list is for “Noisy Friends”! These are the people who blow up my twitter feed with tweets every hour or more. I’ve taken to unfollowing them on Twitter and pulling thier tweets into FF. Then I can scan their tweets at the end of the day to look for value beyond knowing what kind of sandwich they ate for lunch.

I get so much more out of my twitter feed on my iPhone by filtering out my noisy friends. (Note: if Twitter added lists/groups, I could do this directly over there; tweetdeck works as a desktop app solution, but i’ve seen no solutions for iPhone yet.)

We Are Information Junkies

When I’ve got time, I’ll dive into my lists, which again are topics I’m interested in or just general discovery points, like funny design links or beta invite trackers, etc.

I’ll dive into my “Home” feed or even “Everyone” when I’m bored or hungry for random new content.

If I’m looking for content regarding a specific person or subject, I’ll use FF’s excellent search functionality. FF search defaults to searching only those you subscribe to, so I almost always add, “who:everyone” to my search query to get a better result.

Got any good FF tips? How do you use it? Subscribe to me here!

Update: Don’t forget to search for FF rooms that might bring you new information specific to your interests.