Live data from Hacker News

Google timer

google.com

41–50 of 157 posts

Re: Google timer

#41
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also far from the first (or even broadest) utility of this type from Google. See also: https://www.google.com/#q=calculator https://www.google.com/#q=time%20in%20new%20york https://www.google.com/#q=50%20miles%20to%20km https://www.google.com/#q=1%20usd%20to%20rmb https://www.google.com/#q=barack%20obama https://www.google.com/#q=weather%20in%20sf

More: https://www.google.com/#q=aal+1 https://www.google.com/#q=nfl+scores

The one I use most often is Google's dictionary:

https://www.google.com/#q=define:hello%20world

Re: Google timer

#42

Interesting side effect. There's this web site: http://www.online-stopwatch.com/timer/1hour/ which comes up top of the google search results for "timer for 1 hour" for me. Now there is absolutely no way they can compete with Google's own offering from an SEO perspective. While this example is trivial to some extent, does it set a precedent that while you can advertise and compete with Google, they can always have the…

Lesson: don't put to much stock into a product that can be replaced by a few lines of code on a search result page.

It's also probably a product that didn't take too many lines.

Re: Google timer

#43
Yet again I am reminded that my google is not necessarily the same as 'your' google

Just like how "define: something" doesn't show a dictionary definiton for me anymore, a functionality i used all the time. And now can't be sure whether was actually removed, or just removed for me!

Re: Google timer

#45
you can combine this with the voice option from search, nice way to speak out loud and have this timer set. I've set up a custom shortcut for triggering voice search ( besides the Ctrl+Shift+.) and works like a charm.

Re: Google timer

#47
post #31

Interesting side effect. There's this web site: http://www.online-stopwatch.com/timer/1hour/ which comes up top of the google search results for "timer for 1 hour" for me. Now there is absolutely no way they can compete with Google's own offering from an SEO perspective. While this example is trivial to some extent, does it set a precedent that while you can advertise and compete with Google, they can always have the…

A precedent has already been set a while ago with Google's calculator [1], Knowledge Graph [2] and whatnot. Search engines' goal is to deliver information and services to their users as fast as possible. If they can provide those themselves, it's a win both for them and their users. I wrote about it here: http://pioul.fr/dont-trust-search-engines-with-your-traffic [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=1%2B1 [2] https:/…

also weather, stocks etc

Re: Google timer

#48
post #43

Yet again I am reminded that my google is not necessarily the same as 'your' google Just like how "define: something" doesn't show a dictionary definiton for me anymore, a functionality i used all the time. And now can't be sure whether was actually removed, or just removed for me!

It still works for me, I use it constantly.

Re: Google timer

#49
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe they have Facebook envy and now wants to keep every visitors they get on the site for as long as possible, just like Facebook. This is a departure away from their original philosophy in which their goal was to send users to the most relevant site for the user query as fast as possible. I hope they haven't forgotten that the reason Yahoo lose out to Google was precisely because of this. Yahoo switched their…

Google has been keeping users from calculator web sites with its calculator/unit converter since before Mark Zuckerberg even wrote Facemash[1]. A fairly obscure timer feature that only shows up when you search for a particular phrase is nothing like search portals of old, nor is this a departure from the different search result widgets they've had for a decade now. This feels like a feature that the OS should have bu…

Agree. What Google did replaced plenty of functionalities that are available on desktop (math, spell-check, dictionary).

But their recent card-based solution to a lot of searches seems to show that they're trying to keep users on Google-owned properties. Try searching for a movie review. You'll notice that everything that pertains to the movie is shown on top and on the right. Clicking on actors lead to yet another google search result with another card on the right. In short, you're being kept within Google.

Does it get you the information you're looking for in as little time as possible? Absolutely. But they're doing this at the expense of the sites they took the data from.

Post reply on HN