Late last week Google unveiled the first major change to its search interface since the introduction of multi-media ("Universal") results into the search results page. They called it Google SearchWiki.
It's a big deal, it's awkward, it's frightening, it's brave, it's already both loved and hated - but it's not a wiki. As Ward Cunningham, the man who invented wikis, told us in our initial coverage of SearchWiki, "Collectively editing thoughts is what leads to the unique wiki behavior..." Days into the experiment it's clear that this feature is more like a forum, and it's not a particularly well architected one at that.
We wonder why Google would choose to call this feature a wiki when it's pretty evident that's not what it is. You can't edit anyone's text in SearchWiki. You can't collaborate intentionally - perhaps in effect users are collaborating by voting search results up and down, but that's hardly the kind of collaborative behavior that every other wiki in the world makes possible.
There's no way to reach consensus, or stasis, in SearchWiki. You can't see the past history of anyone who contributes. Documents don't change, they just get bigger. There's no discussion of the "wiki" document, just the document itself.
There are two major problems with SearchWiki, beyond the fact that it's not a wiki. First, the usability is awful. It's really bad. Users have the visual UI of Google, famous for being clean and clear of disruptions, but if they want to view the markup from other users they have to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the search results page. Then, in many cases, clicking that button just tells you there are no wiki results. It's a terrible user experience.
Second, there's no changing, challenging or hiding anything that's been posted. Try a search for McDonald's, for example. There are two notes - one from some random web designer that's spamming the "wiki" with a link to his page, the other from some joker testing the obscenity filter. Neither can be removed, edited, nothing. We presume that the McDonald's PR department has seen this - but is there anything that even they can do about it? Apparently not. Wait until it's you that has things you don't like appended to the page just one click away from page 1 Google for your name - what are you going to do about it?
Wikipedia has a big, engaged community that's worked out some practices and tools to make it all work as well as it does. Google, on the other hand, threw hundreds of millions of people into a forum, called it a wiki and left everyone to their own devices.
Wikis are something very special. They are one of the first types of social software that many business users are introduced to at work. Wikis are used for every kind of collaborative effort you can imagine, from tracking the history of politicians, to sharing best practices for librarians to categorizing every living species on earth. Wikis are not forums for dropping comments, spam and thumbing up your favorite web pages.
There's a whole lot of potential here - but as it is Google SearchWiki is an absolute train wreck. Maybe when larger and larger numbers of people wash over it things will get better. We're not so sure, though.
Comments
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beautiful , system now obtaining
Posted by: arkadaşlık | November 24, 2008 1:41 PM
I was wondering if maybe I'd missed the wiki part. It's a pain to even display others' comments.
Posted by: Daniel J. Pritchett
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November 24, 2008 1:59 PM
What mystifies me is that this just rolled out to the world. No Labs version, etc. I'm sure they tested it somehow, but my god, they're rolling out a change to their main search results page...
A lot of the basic problems (what DO you do about spam and abusive comments?) would certainly h ave been ironed out in a Labs rollout... it's an odd feeling.
Posted by: rick | November 24, 2008 3:07 PM
And you can't seem to scroll past the first page of comments? Comments on google.com are now in the thousands...
Posted by: Simon | November 24, 2008 3:30 PM
Not only do they call their non-collaborative system a wiki, but they refuse to call their actual wiki provider (Google Sites, what used to be JotSpot) a wiki. Pure absurdity.
Thanks for the great post Marshall.
Posted by: Steven | November 24, 2008 3:51 PM
You may like to see this new biomedical search engine VADLO (http://vadlo.com).
Posted by: MK | November 24, 2008 3:51 PM
Thank you for a sober, informed post on the subject. My own take on Google's SearchWiki project is that it is neither a Wiki nor a personalized search engine, but rather a half-baked attempt to enter the personal information management (PIM) space:
http://thenoisychannel.com/2008/11/21/google-searchwiki-an-interesting-take-on-pim/
Posted by: Daniel Tunkelang
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November 24, 2008 4:16 PM
I agree it indeed is anything but a wiki. I don't know if I'd call it a trainwreck, but it certainly leaves much to be desired. I suspect the biggest reason Google decided to release it in the current state was to just to start collecting data. It's too bad they didn't come up with a better name.
Posted by: GeekLad | November 24, 2008 5:54 PM
Finally, somebody notices the obvious on the blogosphere. Thank you for being a voices of reason.
Posted by: Albert Alfons Barlemann | November 24, 2008 5:56 PM
It seems the fine folks at Google were inspired by the lurchy, erratic and sometimes bizarre behavior exhibited by the McCain campaign.
Posted by: KP | November 24, 2008 6:31 PM
for me there's no problem if Google will call it SearchWiki or SearchKiwi. Google can call their services and products anything they want. That name might be good for the others or might be bad, I don't care as long as when they say SearchWiki I always assume it's the SearchWiki of Google not of any WikiWiki company.
Posted by: SELaplana | November 24, 2008 6:58 PM
I agree with Daniel. Looks like a move into PIM. According to a post by Rob Hof on businessweek.com, Google's product manager Cedric Dupont notes it offers users control over 'personal search results' but doesn't rule out it eventually giving Google insight into the results they should present to those users who are 'not signed in'. Unless they make it more interactive, it seems like a marketing ploy for Google to both 'cache' in on their name and use the "who doesn't like a wiki" scenario. Humm... instead of calling it a wiki, perhaps they could TELL users "Please forgive the privacy intrusion dust... just trying to improve results by developing a new algorithm tweak!" I think most users could get behind that, and smile.
Posted by: Wilhlemina | November 24, 2008 7:04 PM
Here's my suggestion for the SearchWiki:
Instead of deploying a forum-style layout, Google should use a short questionnaire with 2 or 3 questions, each having its own radio buttons with values of "Yes", "For this particular search only", "Maybe", "No", and "Spam".
The 3 possible questions I came up with are:
1. Is this result relevant?
2. Is this a page worth visiting?
3. Does this page suit your needs?
This will have much better effects on the search algorithm and database, and will make users' input language-independent.
Oh, and by the way, they should also cancel the Promote / Remove buttons. It's redundant.
Posted by: Ziv Levin | November 25, 2008 1:07 AM
Google has really cocked up here. Why change something that already works? This 'wiki' is frustrating and completly useless - they should've at least beta tested.
If only there was a decent alternative search engine...catch up Yahoo!
Posted by: Marcowatty | November 25, 2008 3:56 AM
Nope, SearchWiki is awesome, you guys just don't get it.
They do need to add a few features though, such as a Disable button for people who don't want it. They need to sort comments by relevance and by date. And provide a switch which allows users to get SearchWiki results by default or use some keyboard shortcut as the switch or a switch located at the top of the page.
Then, next Google should link SearchWiki with Knol articles and Knol debates.
Posted by: Charbax | November 25, 2008 4:00 AM
If Google uses the SearchWiki data in their search results then they will kill off Adsense.
Instead of paying for Adsense, companies will hire service companies with employees promoting the customers' keywords.
Getting orgnanic search results is much better than ad links.
Posted by: Engago Team | November 25, 2008 5:20 AM
Maybe it's not a wiki but it's AMAZING.
Comment problem â non-existent. They don't show other people's comments anymore (they should though â I don't care if it's spam â it's pretty amazing that anybody can write what they want about any site so quickly).
You will see â a year will pass, they'll add some functionality, and it's going to be a super cool product.
I love the idea of being able to push up my favorite results (even if it's just for myself) and to comment on any site. True, might be abused, but if you can vote on comments, you can quickly "bury" the stuff that suck.
Posted by: Dmitry Paranyushkin
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November 25, 2008 9:45 PM
I really don't get it.. my favorite search results? why would i have favorite results? On which use case do i search for the same thing more than once or twice. I might want to bookmark a site but those sites i find through weblogs or other sites not google. I guess i don't see myself using this ever but if anyone can sketch a use-case for me i'd be much obliged.
Posted by: Tijs Teulings | November 29, 2008 12:24 PM
its a great tool but the comments should not be made public
Posted by: Manish | December 3, 2008 8:47 PM
It's probably not coincidental that "SearchWiki" is closely named and positioned to Search Wikia. They're very much the same conceptually and I'm surprised there isn't some trademark action about it.
I see great use for researchers who can organize their sources and for people looking to educate others on particular topics, recommending some sites over others.
Conceivably, you could even hand a customized Google account, complete with custom-tailored search results in a particular area, to someone else, complete with public annotations.
I wrote a primer on SearchWiki which talks about some of the implications for businesses that might be interesting to folks in industry:
http://www.integratedroi.com/businesses-adjust-to-google-searchwiki/
Posted by: Steven Leung | December 4, 2008 1:38 AM