Google's real-time search feature has reached SA, allowing users to find tweets, blog posts and news stories immediately after they are published on the Web.
“Back in December, we introduced a string of new search innovations on Google.com to bring our results to life with a dynamic stream of real-time content from across the Web,” says Google product manager, Dylan Casey.
Now, a small subset of users will be able to use this feature, but - in some countries - it might take a couple of days before there is full visibility, says Casey.
When South African users conduct searches, they will be able to see relevant headlines from news reports and blog posts published “just seconds ago”, and live updates from people on social networking sites like Twitter, MySpace and FriendFeed.
He explains that, if a user types in a search term, after the search results page has been loaded for a few seconds, they will see real-time results start to appear.
“Our real-time search features are based on more than a dozen new search technologies that enable us to monitor more than a billion documents and process hundreds of millions of real-time changes each day,” adds Casey.
The feature “represents an important step in the evolution of search. It's a step towards giving users the ability to access highly-relevant and fresh information, delivered in real-time from across the Web”, he notes.
The new search options are also designed for iPhone and Android devices.
Google announced other search innovations for mobile late last year. “Beyond text, you can now search by a number of new modes including voice, location and sight - all from a mobile device,” says Google fellow Amit Singhal.
He adds that the location of one's mobile can be used to show what's nearby, and a visual search application lets a user search for objects using images rather than words, by using a camera phone.
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