So this is just a mashup page using most of their API's, but without any real smartness to what is shown... so it ends up looking and feeling like a mashup from 5 years ago.<p>Poor execution unfortunately. A better thing to do from the outset would be: If nothing is found close that box and put it at the bottom. That would be something fractionally better than pretending it's meaningful to search for patents or use SketchUp on meaningless things.
First thing I typed in, reflexively, was "shit." To great unexpected effect.<p>Measure popularity of shit on the web. Explore shit in 3d. Buy all kinds of shit stuff. Make a photo album about shit. Watch videos of shit. Plan your shit events. Start a shit discussion group. Find shit nearby.
"Schedule a date with Emacs" --- algorithms say the darndest things.<p>But more seriously, the execution isn't that great. They could at least filter the products that don't produce useful results. At the moment, product search is only advertising its incompetence by telling me it found nothing. Also, given the built-in obviously-fill-in-the-blank screenshots and text, I'm not actually inclined to use their products.<p>Plus, for what "X" are both "Patents about X" and "Date with X" meaningful statements?
For me, the obvious choice was "japanese women"...<p><a href="http://www.wdyl.com/#japanese%20women" rel="nofollow">http://www.wdyl.com/#japanese%20women</a>
I was hoping I would see a beautiful visualization of what people across the world love. Instead it poured out a bunch of information. Why does this seem typically Google?
It is interesting: the hosting is indeed by an IP address that points to Google's 1e100.net, but the domain's registrant is not Google, rather an individual. Moreover, the name servers are hosted by fabulous.com. Go figure...
<a href="http://www.wdyl.com/#half-baked" rel="nofollow">http://www.wdyl.com/#half-baked</a> ideas<p>^ Way to not make your 3+ word searches linkable. Hmmm.
<a href="http://www.wdyl.com/#lolcats" rel="nofollow">http://www.wdyl.com/#lolcats</a> reveals that there is a patent with the word lolcats in it (<a href="http://www.google.com/patents?q=lolcats" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/patents?q=lolcats</a>)<p>But besides that and "Scour the earth for lolcats", this isn't really doing much for me. Nice try google interns.
I think most people are projecting a bigger ambition onto this than is accurate. This is not Google's revolutionary attempt at visualized search, it's a cute way to showcase all the diverse products in Google's portfolio. "What do you love? Here's what we can do for you regarding that." It's just a marketing micro-site.