Wednesday, December 18, 2002

Google Webquotes Fresh into Google Labs is Google Webquotes, an interesting tool that provides quotations about a site next to search results.  It still has some quirks, but could provide to be an interesting natural language reputation system.  Here's a sample search result: President George W. Bush (12 WebQuotes) http://www.whitehouse.gov/president/ - Cached George W. Bush, Governor of Texas and son of former President George Bush is elected president of the United States. Source: http://www.calfcreek.net/timeline.html George W. » Bitches! You and you bitchass friends need to stop this sh#* before I send my boys to shut down your site. This is not why I send your ass to school in Long Island so you can pick on white people. Source: http://www.shexay.net/oldtagboard.htm George W. » Of course your ass is fine, your tits are BIG, but thats no reason to pick on other ppl. Source: http://www.shexay.net/oldtagboard.htm The problem with this being useful is pretty obvious.  Perhaps this is just a neat project, or something to counter the emergence of GoogleTrinkets like Googlism or Googlefight. But there is a more practical concern besides reputation or liable -- Webquotes does not mine weblogs, perhaps the greatest source of natural language feedback, very well at all.  Just try a search of some of the bloggers at the top of the food chain like Dave or Doc.  Instead it picks up quotes when they are very similar to the format of the search results itself.  For example: Dave Winer -- A nice guy who quit smoking and should be applauded Doc Searls -- A nice guy who writes really well Let's see if that turns up in the search results... 3:49:09 PM    comment []

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