A week or so after I bloged about my dream search box, Yahoo! internally released a new search feature called Open Shortcuts that was functionally equivalent to my hack (the timing, AFAIK, was completely coincidental). Well, as of yesterday, this feature has apparently become publicly available. Read more over at the Yahoo! Search blog.
Despite working at Yahoo! (though not in the search division), I admittedly still use Google as my default search engine. For me, the main reasons that I haven't been able to switch (I've tried, I swear!) are:
- Google's result are marginally better (more relevant, less spam) than Yahoo
- I like the weather forecast display better on G
- I like the stock ticker display better on G
- Google's calculator is better (try: "0xef to binary","e^4", "14!" --none of these work on Yahoo!)
Open Shortcuts is kind of cool because it does lower the barrier for conversion. I can set my default search engine to Yahoo! and selectively send queries to Google with 3 extra key strokes. Or I can send my stock symbol lookups to Yahoo! Finance (which, at the end, is usually what comes up as the #1 result on Google anyway). But then, 3 extra key strokes to lookup a 4 letter ticker symbol adds 60% more work... and that's a lot.
The other cool thing about Open Shortcuts is that it adds stickiness to search. Since the shortcuts are completely customizable, once you've set things up the way you like them and get used to it, you're likely to keep using the product. Whereas with generic non-customized search, the cost of switching is practically zero (assuming equivalent functionality and quality).
Posted Tue, July 11, 2006 07:51 by wjpsktbgz psnqeztdo@194.126.17
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