RSSGoogle Reformats Web Sites for Phones
By the Betanews Staff | Published February 23, 2006, 2:12 PM
With no Portable Google Machine on the horizon, Google is providing a new option for mobile phone users looking up a quick answer to their query: automatically reformatting the top search result for small screens. The page's layout is translated through Google's servers and broken up into smaller pieces.
"What if, say, you're out somewhere and absolutely must know if that new Super Monkey Ball game for the Nintendo DS is in stores yet?" asked Google engineer Roger Skubowius. "The whole idea is to get you the information you want as quickly as possible, so you can spend less time downloading and scrolling through long documents on a pocket-sized screen."
Tried using google SMS today twice and never got a response back. Oh well, just adds to the list of products from google that seemed like a good idea (gmail, desktop, cache) but have bad/improper implementations and turn me off.
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|faux pas.....
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|Great exchange guys, w/ no personal dissing-- fantabulous!!! I side w/ WM here btw.
SM: you've now stooped to new lows-- dissing Google w/ emph'ass'is....... be careful who you mess with / how low you stoop: knowing what the Devil enjoys doing.... mmuuhhuuaaahhhaaahhaaa!
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|Heh... to which post of WM's are you agreeing?
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|The benefit of increased traffic-- don't foresee similar outcry like w/ the book scanning...You all make good points, but it's not as if they were trying this with their regular search...
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|two things:
Books don't contain ads.
Websites generally do. You reformat a website, you screw with the presentation of the ads (and if the webmaster is an artist, you screw with his 'Vision').
This is going to bite Google in the arse. It may bring in more traffic, but it will be traffic that is not getting the site as it was intended to be displayed, and thus, less desirable.
Besides, if they actually get a decline in hits, they'll blame it on Google for giving users a bad first impression of their site.
They really need to rethink this. I'm not saying I'm the authority on this, maybe they've come up with something I haven't seen yet, but from what I have read on their blog and elsewhere, they didn't put much thought into this. It sounds more like somneone's 20 minutes, if you ask me. (I wonder if they even ran it by legal)
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|Retarded
Google is THE Devil.
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|Beginning to think you may be on to something there.
And if not the Devil, at least criminally stupid when it comes to this little endeavor.
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|Erm... Opera Mini, anyone?
http://mini.opera.com
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|You apparently missed the entire point.
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|yeah beta_animal ....
try reading the article before posting any comments
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|No. Opera mini allows you to access the entire web and reformats for a small screen. What's the point in only being able to read the "top search result"? Google say "speed" but I'm guessing with bookmarking etc. with Opera Mini, you'll be able to access the information you need much faster, instead of the advertizer's number one choice.
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|Ahh, but Opera Mini has to be installed. :D
*never checked if Google's page formatter does, but I doubt it.
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|Why install something on your phone when google's servers do it for free?
Try reading the article instead of ad spamming the comments section.
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|Nope.
Automagic.
I assume it's based on how the browser identifies itself.
From Google Blog:
That's because now whenever you click on a Google search result through your mobile web browser, Google automatically translates the page's layout to make it as easy as possible to read on a small screen. We also break long-winded web pages into smaller pieces and do our best to show you the portion that's relevant to your query, first.
Sounds like on large graphic intense pages, you'll be missing quite a bit, which the page owners will not like a bit.
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|i wonder how this will translate when a framed page comes up ....
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|Let's not overdo it though, okay?
It is gift from the BetaNews Gods, and we must respect it and honor it accordingly... ;P
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|They are so going to get sued for this.
After all the crap they got about Google News, you'd think they'd actually *think* about something like this before attempting it.
People/Companies are not going to take kindly to having their offerings run through the "GoogleBlender".
I'd be highly amused if they tried putting their GoogleAds in there too.
ServerMechanic, you may have been right all along...
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|I think if companies react that way (which they probably will - like you said), they need their collective heads checked.
The only end result of this project for the individual websites would be increased traffic. This is bad how?
Some people just don't get it.
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|even tho pc_tool has a good point .... i have to agree with what you state ....
companies should be thankful that google will be "fitting" them further ...
if i were a big company, id much rather have my "ad" shrinked and reformated to reach more people, than to have no "ad" at all .....
plus, technically, the queried results are public, so practically google can do with them whatever they see fit ....
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|Ad-revenue.
If they do anything that renders an ad in a place it was not intended to be, they will claim lost ad-revenue.
The number of increased hits doesn't do it unless those increased hits are generating ad-revenue.
With Google News, in order to get the whole story, the *have* to visit the originating page and see it in it's intended layout.
With this service, you *never* see the intended layout.
I feel the companies will be in the right on this one. The moment people start using their phones instead of getting up and going to the computer, the sites will start to bleed. And they'll take Google to task for it.
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|oh chet :P ... dats true ....
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|If they want their pages accessible on mobile devices, then they have the option of creating pages that look decent on mobiles.
It takes a simple script to direct users to either the mobile or desktop versions of a page.
They have the option if they wish to excersize it. They will frown on Google thinking it can simply go ahead and do this for them.
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|Mmmm... Have to agree with you there.
On a completely unrelated note, I just figured out how to add formatting to comments. See? This is fun.
WEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...
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|I just figured out how to add formatting to comments.
Oh God....
The world is unprepared...
BBCode without the extras, like [quote].
Does that mean I can stop putting *asterisks* around words to signify emphatic wording?
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|lol
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|Weeeeee
This is indeed fun! :)
Too bad the [IMG] tag doesn't work...
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|nononon...
Thank GOD the image tag doesn't work.
Can you imagine the Goatse image spamming that'd be done?
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|the image tag and the color tags .... none work :( along with the size , move, glow, quote, or email tags
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|All good and wonderful to have NOT working. Otherwise this site would turn into one glaring, ugly, blinking, flashy, trashed, ad-like annoyance.
Hey, there's a though... does the [blink] tag work?[/blink]
No. Very good.
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