Google That Tune!

Google often feels like an extension of my brain. I want some technical trick I've forgotten--it's there. I rarely use bookmarks--it's easier to google it.

It's so good, I invented the Radio Free Santa Fe game. Using only lyrics, find those lyrics as well as the song name and artirst while the song plays. More mainstream stations, with their hit songs, offer little challenge. Only Radio Free Santa Fe's eclectic play list is challenging enough.

But marring this blissful cybernetic union is that Google doesn't really understand language. I want to say, I mean "pitch" as a noun, not as a verb; I mean "id" not "ID" as in "ID Card." Maybe if English weren't so weird, with nouns verbing themselves and verbs pulling a noun switch--all blissfully free of endings--this understanding would be easier to automate. Understanding language is hard, but then again, so was search pre-Google.

Speaking of automation, I'm curious how much hand-editing Google does to throw out bogus results. I was convinced that the attempt to Google bomb Versign had not worked, but as of today (early June 24th, 2002) the posting about their negligence is on the second page of results for "Verisign".

Posted by Chad Lundgren on Monday, June 24, 2002 (Link)

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