Remixing Google's Search Results

Miscellaneous

from the remix-culture dept

It appears that there are a lot of folks out there who are trying to “remix” Google’s interface. The one that got the most press, of course, was A9, who built an entirely new interface to searching Google. Then, there’s Prog (formerly Proogle), which adds in PageRank info to Google search results. Now comes the news of an application called MoreGoogle, which tries to add additional features to the Google interface to make it more useful. I haven’t tried it (and some folks may be a bit wary to download a random app and let it hijack their Google searches), but the article suggests that the author of the program just wanted to make the Google interface more useful. Once the program is installed, it basically watches over any Google searches, and alters the results to make them more useful: adding in thumbnail images of the website and adding an “open in new window button.” The application adds in some new text ads, that appear to be part of AdSense (this isn’t clearly explained) in order to get some money back for altering the Google interface. Obviously it would be pretty simple for Google to add these features themselves, and it’s unclear how legit this particular app really is, but it’s still very cool to see people trying to “remix” Google results to make them more valuable. Of course, there’s a pretty good chance that Google’s lawyers might not find it as cool.