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June 3, 2009

Google Squared Adds Structure to Unstructured Data

Google Squared, the service that automatically generates lists of entities and associated attributes, is now live. "Google Squared is a new way of organizing information on the Web to make it more useful and structured," explains Google.

For example, if you search for [African countries], Google Squared generates a list of countries, then it finds attributes that should be appropriate when you describe a country (capital, currency, image/map) and it tries to find values for the attributes. Google Squared shows only the first 7 results, but you can always add new results and even new attributes. Clicking on the first blank column, Google Squared suggests 5 new columns: area, religion, language, GDP and Internet users.



A search for [endangered species] returns relevant search results, although Wikipedia has a more comprehensive list.


Google Squared is good at finding palindromes from a lot of sources:



Google Squared's results aren't always great: if you search for [Motown], Google finds relevant artists like Diana Ross or Marvin Gaye, but it mixes them with songs like "Got to be there".


If you find mistakes, Google Squared lets you remove rows, columns, select alternative values for attributes and save the customized square online so you can share it with other people.

The service seems to be a clever combination between Google Sets, which creates sets of items from a few examples, and Google Q&A, which extracts facts from the web (an example: [Britney Spears' mother]). In fact, you can even start with an empty square and dynamically add items and attributes.

16 comments:

  1. Nice report. Thanks. :)

    > The service seems to be a clever combination between Google Sets, which creates sets of items from a few examples, and Google Q&A, which extracts facts from the web (an example: [Britney Spears' mother]).

    Really!

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  2. The Google Set ancestry is quite evident when GS isn't able to build a square. This is in fact the reply message:

    Google Squared couldn't automatically build a Square about [your query].
    But don't give up yet!

    Start a Square by entering up to 5 example items below.

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  3. Hehe, try doing a search for "programming languages". It shows a column for "Death" (date). For "Scheme", it shows, "Where Life's Start Is a Deadly Risk", in the "Death" column. rofl

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  4. I wonder if google uses data we provide filling squares to improve other services.

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  5. Your new headline is "Google Squared Adds Structure to Unstructured Data" but isn't it also possible that part of the Google Squared input is based on structured data like e.g. HTML tables?

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  6. Yah its a clear indication of improved sets, with more information and more flexibility, I use google sets from past 3 years or so, this is a gr8 improvement for it

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  7. It is a good start but still needs a lot of improvement. If they add a Google Toolbar button for it, then we don't have to type the URL to get Google Squared.

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  8. Well they always come with something new and unique it is just winderful

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  9. Google always makes it easy for use now it will be more simpler

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  10. Interesting :)

    Karthik Balaguru

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  11. I think it should all be Diana Ross (:

    http://raketler.angelfire.com/

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  12. Well this is a new way to explore things ...Great ...Google always makes things easy and simpler...

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  13. connection to google docs (spreadsheet) would be great
    and/or: convert to pdf
    and/or: print the results

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  14. For searches like "African countries" Google Squared is great, but if you type in "Africa", I find Wolfram Alpha (http://www.wolframalpha.com/) more useful.

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  15. The tag line is rubbish unstructured data also includes emails and phone calls the only company that can not only give structure to this kind of data but understands the conceptual and contextual meaning of the data is AUTONOMY.

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  16. Google Squared does not exist anymore. Cannot find a replacment!

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