Google Fast Flip lets you browse news articles and the like as if you are browsing through a newspaper. This visual representation makes it quick and easy to look over different articles, without actually having to check out each one until you find what you really want.

It adds a new dimension to search that is very welcome.

Yahoo have lost 15%, MSN have lost 21% and Ask has also lost 21% over last year.

Searchers are also now using longer search queries when searching for what they want on the web. What does this mean? This means that the average searcher now knows (better) how to use a search engine to find the results that he/she is searching for.

Longer search queries are becoming more popular as year over year increases (and decreases) show just that.

• 1 word search queries have dropped by 3%
• 2 word search queries have dropped by 5%
• 3 word search queries have remained stable
• 4 word search queries have increased by 2%
• 5 word search queries have increased by 6%
• 6 word search queries have increased by 8%
• 7 word search queries have increased by 12%
• 8 word search queries have increased by 22%

This means that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC) management have become a lot more difficult as search queries become longer and therefore more varied.

Paid advertising using keyword targeting will become more difficult as accounts become larger due to increased keyword numbers. As keyword phrases become more targeted, so too must paid advertising campaigns such as Google AdWords, in order to maximise quality score, reduce Cost Per Click (CPC), and thereby increase Return On Investment (ROI).

Discover what weather is heading your way:

Find Local Businesses near you or where you are headed:

Need to convert some units?

What’s on at the movies and what are the showtimes?

How’s the game going:

When does your Cousin’s flight arrive?

What’s the definition of … ?

What time is it in … ?

Let’s make some money:

Need to calculate just how much money you’ve made today?

Ready to rumble?

Convert your currency:

Is it at the tip of your tongue?

Need to track your packages?

What area code is that?

What’s the population of … ?

Find housing listings:

With the ability to search back and forth over days or decades and on whichever topic you choose, it has never been easier to find what you were looking for.

Google News Timeline search on Michael Jackson

You have the ability to view your schedule, add or remove sights and change the dates of your intended stay.

Taking a further look into Google City Tours, the first thing I have noticed is that there is no tour information for Hong Kong, or at least I cannot figure out what to search for. I have tried “Hong Kong” and “Hong Kong, China”, but nothing comes up. Upon typing in “Melbourne, Australia”, at once a 3 day itinerary is displayed for sights across the Melbourne city area.

Melbourne Schedule, Google City Tours

Most sights appear to be Museums, something which doesn’t interest me that much. After removing most museums from my schedule, there is not much left for my 3 day proposed schedule.  Now, you may also add items to your schedule, but the problem is that without knowing where to go, it is very difficult to know what to search for.

In this respect, Google City Tours may still have a long way to go to become more functional and hence the reason for it being in the Labs area of Google – Where new programs are tested and developed before becoming main stream.

I can definitely see a good use for Googly City Tours and look forward to using it in the future when it is fully functional.

Google Squared returns a spreadsheet view of results compared with one another for easy ah… comparison. This makes finding what you are looking for much easier. Lets look at some examples.

Let’s say we want to buy a new digital camera. Let’s type digital camera into Google squared: http://www.google.com/squared/search?q=digital+camera

Let’s narrow it down to Olympus Digital Camera: http://www.google.com/squared/search?q=olympus+digital+camera

This returns much more relevant results. With a table showing the item name, an image of the camera, a description, the manufacturer (of course they are all the same for this search), the resolution in Mega Pixels and the colors the are available in. The most interesting thing here is that all these pieces of information are actually sourced from different locations (you can see the domain name as you hover your mouse over each section).

There is also a button marked “Add to this Square” which will add more results to the table, should you decide that the search is highly relevant.

I like the look of the ‘tough’ range so I’ll enter “olympus tough digital camera” to narrow my results. http://www.google.com/squared/search?q=olympus+tough+digital+camera

Great. Now I can see many of the models in the tough range of Olympus digital cameras and I can also see the prices, the condition (if second hand), along with the usual item name, description and image. I’d like to see the Mega Pixel stats so I will add a column. I start typing in meg… and I can select megapixels from the drop down – oh it looks like Google need to do some more work on this feature as no values are returned.

Either way, I can see that I like the look of the Olympus Stylus Tough 6000. By clicking on the description I am taken to that specific product page on the Olympus America website which overall is a good experience for me, however clearly some refinements still need to be made – the reason why Google Squared is still in Beta.

This post from Google explains how the new Google Local Business Center Dashboard works. Check out this video for more information:

Looking at this exciting preview of the product, Google Wave will enable you to communicate much more effectively, much more quicker, and will most likely eliminate the need for the use of instant messenger programs such as MSN Messenger and other email interfaces. In fact this makes both email and messenger appear outdated.

The video shown below is the preview of Google Wave. It is rather long at 1 hour and 20 mins, however it is very exciting and well worth the watch. I personally look forward to ridding myself of email management and messenger interruptions throughout my working day. I believe that Google Wave will effectively increase productivity by making online communication much easier.

Google Wave may also upset Facebook popularity through its great photo sharing abilities which appear to be easier to use than Facebook. Many people on Facebook that I know of use it primarily for photo sharing. Since Facebook requires a seperate login, and therefore more time spend checking various interfaces, this program could also be thrown by the wayside, as I know that I’d be better off not playing the various games available through the Facebook interface.

Micro blogging on Facebook via status updates, or for that matter, the use of Twitter may also become less valuable with the introduction of Google Wave. Although I am not (seemingly disgracefully) not an active user of Twitter, it would seem that Google Wave could act on a similar scale to this program and therefore I am sure that status updates and the like will more than likely also be a feature of Google Wave (it may very well be already as I am only 20 mins into the video).

Minute after minute this video gives you something more to be excited about. The ability to post a “wave” – lets call that a conversation or a group of photos compiled from those that shared the experience together in their ah… “wave” – can be quickly and super easily (with the click on one button) posted onto your blog by adding the blog to your conversation or ah… “wave” (I’ll refer to this as a “wave” from now on). Further, adding a comment to this same blog entry, results in the wave being updated – did I mention this happens instantly – streaming I guess you would call it – should you have the “wave” open at the same time that the comment is made (and by instantly I mean character by character).

The great thing about this product is that it does away with all sent messages and new messages in your inbox and sent messages box. The wave continues to roll along, you can see your replies, other people’s input, etc. all within this one wave. You can even playback the wave to see who replied when and what they said along the way to get to the final stage. This is a great feature for those who have been added to the wave at a later stage in the conversation.

I have to say that I am overwhelmed at this point in time with all the features this new product has to offer. 40 mins into this preview video and I cannot express my excitement enough.

And so multiple people can edit what forms into some sort of document, which no doubt I imagine can be exported into Word or whichever word processing package you may use. In real time you can have multiple people editing the same document and see their changes live in front of your eyes character by character. This has the potential firstly to cut back on multiple replies etc in email communicating back and forth with track changes to documents etc. All changes, additions, subtractions whatever are all made simultaneously. It is a fantastic idea.

For more features of this new product by Google to be released later in the year check out the video embedded into this post.