<img class="alignleft" title="Google magic" src="http://www.biggles2k.com/images/blog/posts/google_magic.png" alt="Google's instant magic trick" width="275" height="95" />With much pomp and proclamation, <a title="Google - as if you don't know the URL" href="http://www.google.com">Google</a> unveiled its latest search engine technology, <a title="Google Instant" href="http://www.google.com/instant">Google Instant</a>, and Arthur C. Clarke would be proud: Apparently the technology is so advanced that it's indistinguishable from magic. In the video <a title="Introducing Google Instant" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElubRNRIUg4&amp;feature=player_embedded">Introducing Google Instant</a>, Google product manager, Jonathan Effrat, suggests that searching "should feel like magic, and we're getting closer to that." Taking the analogy one step farther, the <a title="Google search adds touch of mind reading" href="http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2010/09/09/google_search_adds_touch_of_mind_reading/">Boston Globe reported</a> Google Instant "is the closest the 12-year-old company has come to realizing its founders'  ambition to build a search engine that reads its users' minds". <a title="Google Instant Mind Readers" href="http://google.about.com/b/2010/09/08/google-instant-mind-readers.htm">Other</a> <a title="Google Instant: Quit reading my mind!" href="http://blog.seattlepi.com/hottopics/archives/220827.asp">blogs</a> and <a title=" Mind-reading web searching from Google Instant" href="http://www.bitterwallet.com/mind-reading-web-searching-from-google-instant/34323">reports</a> <a title="And Now... Google Instant Search Mind Reader?" href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20100909/tc_nf/75095">headlined</a> the mind-reading capabilities as well, and Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president for search products and user experience, jokingly stated, "There's even a psychic element to it."

Joking aside, Sergey Brin, one of Google's co-founders, remarked, "It's a little bit of a new dawn in computing."  The <a title="Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?" href="http://http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61429/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-1.htm">International Business Times</a> cited the analyst, Hadley Reynolds, as saying "the  speed and streaming aspects of Google's understanding of the user  query  and presentation of the results will be revolutionary".  Revolutionary? You betcha, agrees Internet analyst Jordan Rohan who, according to the <a title="Google Unveils Tool to Speed Up Searches" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/technology/techspecial/09google.html?_r=1">New York Times</a>, said, "It's been awhile since there's been a game changer in search, and this is." Rohan went on to claim that the technology could not be easily reproduced by Google's competitors.

True enough. Google's competitors didn't replicate the technology, but 19-year-old Standford University student, <a title="Feross Aboukhadijeh" href="http://www.feross.org/">Feross Aboukhadijeh</a>, <a title="'YouTube Instant' creator, 19, finds instant fame" href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/09/14/cnet.youtube.instant.creator/index.html?hpt=C2">did the very next day</a>. After making a bet with his roommate that he could re-create Google's mind-reading magic within an hour, Feross whipped up the bare-bones <a title="YouTube Instant" href="http://ytinstant.com/">YouTube Instant</a>.[1. But he lost the bet. It took him three hours to crack the code.] After posting a Facebook link to his new creation on Thursday night, he woke up the next morning to a deluge of emails congratulating him on his accomplishment, interview requests from various media outlets, and a potential new job, which was offered to him over Twitter by YouTube CEO Chad Hurley. [2. This reminds me: I need to start coding up Twitter Instant after finishing this blog.]

So what is this technology that is so mythical that it can purportedly revolutionize the search industry, instantly (pun intended) create internet sensations, and is one step closer to reading your thoughts? Four words (and some hyphens): Search-as-you-type.

Yes, that's what all the hype the past week has been about: Google now brings up search results while you type in your query. Give it a try. Type "G" and you start seeing what Google thinks (or hopes) you are looking for (in this case, "<a title="Gmail" href="http://www.gmail.com/">Gmail</a>", showed up as my first result). Add an "o" or two and "<a title="Goggle Maps" href="http://maps.google.com">Google Maps</a>" makes its first appearance. Finish up with an "f" and a "y" and you're treated with images of one of <a title="Goofy!" href="http://www.siirparki.com/goofy_1024.jpg">Disney's famous characters</a> whose name, not coincidentally, matches my personal opinion of this latest search rage.

Lest you think my opinion overly harsh, let's step back and examine the sleight-of-hand that Google is performing. Let's repeat what we did, this time with Google Instant search turned off. Type "G" in the search box, and a drop-down list appears with "Gmail" as the first result. Continue with an "o" or two and "Google Maps" makes its appearance. Add "fy" and press the search button. Did any of this feel familiar? It should. Google has had word-completion technology within its search box for some time now. And, obviously, it's had search engine technology in the bag far longer than that. Thus, the new trick is that Google now sends its "completed" words quietly back to the search engine while you type. In other words, Google is doing exactly the same thing that it was before, just mixing the order up a bit. And this is one of the reasons why a college kid could replicate the functionality so easily.

I am, of course, greatly simplifying the time and effort that the Google   engineers spent  developing this. By quietly querying its search   engine every time you  type a character or two, Google has increased   the traffic to its  servers by a factor of... well, I don't know. But   if typing in the five  letters of "Goofy" results in 5 times as many   hits on Google computers,  one can only image how searching for "Google   instant mind reading"  impacts them. Now multiply that by the billion   searches they get every second... You get the idea. A lot of <a title="Google Instant, behind the scenes" href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/google-instant-behind-scenes.html">hard work and clever engineering</a> went into making this trick scalable on the global stage.
<blockquote>"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." <strong>~Arthur C. Clarke</strong></blockquote>
Nevertheless, I am having a hard time defining the   exact, "revolutionary" characteristic of this marvelous feat of engineering.  According to   the <a title="Search: now faster than the speed of type" href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/search-now-faster-than-speed-of-type.html">official Google blog post</a>,   the primary benefit of Google Instant is that it will save me two   to five seconds per search. Add in the other Google users who share my   search time, and that accumulates to 11 hours saved per second.  But   what, exactly, does that mean? An increase in world-wide productivity?  Can we cash in those saved hours when <a title="End of the Universe" href="http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101010625/story.html">time starts closing up shop</a>? Regardless, it's apparently a big <a title="11 hours saved per second" href="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/09/09/business/jp-google/jp-google-popup.jpg">selling point</a>.

That, of course, leads to the big question: Will the magic sell? Advertising minds want to know, and if Google pays attention to anyone, it's search advertisers, who are predominantly responsible for the $24 billion Google earned last year. If Google Instant is a game-changer of anything, it could be in how its ads are displayed, and this has advertisers understandably concerned, especially since no one seems to be certain as to how search advertising will be impacted. According to <a title="Google seeks to speed up web searches" href="http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/business/article/google-seeks-to-speed-up-web-searches/">one report</a>, Google executives insist the new technology won't change search page rankings or how it displays advertisements; yet in <a title="Google Instant redefines search but is world ready?" href="http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/61430/20100911/google-instant-redefines-search-but-is-world-ready-2.htm">another report</a>, Google doesn't seem so sure. Hopefully, this will become clearer in the future, otherwise advertisers may take their business<a title="Bing" href="http://www.bing.com"> elsewhere</a> and, sadly, without its advertising revenue, Google, like the very best of magic tricks, could instantly disappear.