Shame.

Shame.

At a macro level they realize that they need to own certain high value content sources (maps, local). Why? If one player dominates (e.g. Amazon in shopping or iTunes in music) a large and lucrative vertical category they could pull a large set of query traffic away from Google.

http://twitpic.com/u1xuf/full

The other thought that I recently had was that as Google includes more data sources (e.g. music results from Lala, profile info from FB, tweets from Twitter, game ratings from GameSpot, potentially restaurant reviews from Yelp, etc.) will it end up reducing traffic to destination sites? I mean it seems like destination sites would just be content producers with the content included in snippets in Google’s search results.

A good and recent example of this is the music partnerships with iLike, Imeem, Lala, etc.. It's difficult to tell whether these deals were economically sensible for these businesses, but from a competitive standpoint, these guys had no other choice, i.e. if one decided not to accept the deal, their competitors certainly would. This attests to the monopolistic power Google is beginning to wield. Of course, Google will argue that they're helping these guys create a viable business model, but the reality is they're rendering these businesses irrelevant. Do you think most users will really care who's delivering their streams as long as they can access them within seconds on Google's music interface?

Despite the big step backward the record industry has taken over the past ten years, the ways that users consume, interact with, share, and appreciate music has been revolutionized by many of the players whose offerings are now being “dumbed down” by Google. Say what you want about the power that Apple wields in digital music, but I was enthusiastic to see them acquire Lala, because I trust Steve Jobs to continue to accelerate digital music's evolution in a manner that enhances the user experience, benefits the art form, and creates a sustainable business model. Eric Schmidt & Co.? Not so much.

Sorry for being long-winded. I'm sure we could brainstorm a handful of other examples. But one thing's for sure…the “don't be evil days” are long passed. Even if it's inadvertant, Google's current strategy poses some frightening implications for content on the web that I think people are slowly waking up to.

Only 2 sites (1 sub page).. Well all I can say is that we may need the folder on the side, but in a mouse over slide out way (too fancy?)

I like preserving active screen real estate by hiding and sliding out “secret lair” styles.

What scares me though is that most of the clutter isn't even useful to the user. Most of those features are there for advertising or because of business development deals with the likes of Twitter. Search for a music artist and you'll be met with Rhapsody and iLike.

I can see what Google is trying to do but by aligning with certain companies you will not only piss of a few others but you'll limit other partnership opportunities.. (Ty Ahmed-Taylor says something similar about Vevo).

On a slightly different note, I think the end of 2009 marks the beginning of a tangible Google backlash.

the additional search features and results don't bother me so much. to me, the issue is with presentment. of course, any interface design must balance functionality with ease of use. striking a balance is often very difficult.

ironically, the blog post i reference above makes the case that google's early success depended largely on its minimal interface. i wonder if there will be a lite.google.com coming soon…

You said it yourself the other day: Google makes its money on (shows the most ads for) for flights, dvds, lawyers, etc. However, these are also topics where there is a whole lot more organic information, too. They are topics for which more “creeping” features almost become a necessity to help people organize that information. Yet these are exactly the topics for which more ads are shown, rather than more relevant search features!

These domains are screaming out for more helpful features to help us sort through all the available information. But all we get instead are ads.

Clippy is not the problem. Lack of screen real estate to be able to develop something better than clippy is the problem. And that lack of real estate arises because so many ads are shown.

BTW Chris, nice work on Hunch!

To Google's credit, they do limit the ads on lots of keywords (using minimum eCPM's/quality score), unlike other search engines that show tons of ads on any query at all.

I'd invite you to take a second look at this screenshot, and count the number of results:

(1) By pure link count, there are three news results, two real time results, and two web page results. Total = 7.

(2) By diversity count, there are only three results, total: A news chunk, a real time chunk, and one (only one!) web site (with a subresult from that same site). Total = 3.

Now, let's count the number of advertisements on the page: one up top and six on the side. Total = 7.

Under one interpretation of the number of Google SERP results, there are over twice as many ads (7) as there are organic results (3). Under a more generous interpretation of SERP counts, there are an equal number of results and ads (7).

Either way, I have a very, very difficult time believing that ads are just as relevant as organic results, to the point where Google believes it has to show at least as many ads as organic results, if not more.

I'm not concerned about feature creep. I am instead concerned about ad creep. Get rid of so many ads, and then put the scrolling real time updates somewhere on the page where the ads used to be, and I would be happy. And that also leaves more room for more than just 1 or 2 web page results, too!