Google Q&A

Google has announced a new service integrated into their search results. Just ask a question and at the top of the results you may get a specific answer.

Google offers a number of examples from their blog, such as “who is bono”, “how many moons does jupiter have”, etc. I played around myself and here are my observations:

• Google knows “who is bono”, “who is snoop dog”, “who is superman”, “who is halle berry”, but doesn’t know “who is christina ricci”. I’m sure there are more.
• When I type in “what is the population of reno, nv” the results return the population for Nevada, but not Reno.
• Google does not know the price of gold or “what is gold pressed latinum”
• Google knows the running time for “braveheart” but not “die hard”, and does not know the release date for “serenity” (does anybody?), or “revenge of the sith”
• Google does not know “who invented the internet”? I thought everybody know that was Al gore
• A search for “who is bono” produces a line at the top, “The following words are very common and were not included in your search: who is.” but searching for “bono”, “who bono” or “is bono” does not produce the Q&A result. The main results themselves seem to change with and without those words as well. I guess this means that those WERE included in in the search.

Conclusion: Google Q&A is a neat feature, but certainly has a long way to go.