SearchMash

Wonder what Google Web search is up to these days? They've got a search engine playground set up at www.searchmash.com. Google says about the site:

SearchMash lets you search the internet in new ways. It is constantly evolving as we come up with ideas and figure out what works and what doesn't. Check back here from time to time to see what has changed, and also to tell us which ones are useful to you. Please bear with us when the site is unavailable as we are limiting its use.

The idea is to see what users think without the expectation of how Google usually does things. When I did a few test searches, the interfaces is nice and clean, and I can see image results right along side Web results. It looks like it's modular, like Google Desktop, only not as cluttered. Wikipedia results got their own module, but it kept collapsing on me with new searches.

Incidentally, Microsoft has their own playground, MsDewey, but it's far more annoying than useful. I really hope they're not serious about moving to something like that. It's like the paper clip guy in Word, only a woman. Yahoo! has their playground at AllTheWeb, and thankfully, it doesn't talk.

• Visit SearchMash
• Learn about other experimental Google tools.
• Learn about Blingo - the search engine with prizes.
• Read about elgooG - the backwards Google search.