The future of search? This time it’s personal

By Mark Frary

Some people will call it yet another encroachment on personal privacy while others will be desperate to get their hands on it?

And what is it? It is Google’s My Answers and is an indication of where we might all be going soon when it comes to searching our own information.

Rather like Google’s discontinued and often missed Desktop Search function, My Answers lets you search through a heap of stuff held in different places, in this case Gmail, Google Calendar and Google+. The new search functionality is also available across all sorts of device - desktop, tablet and mobile, although currently only for English-speaking users in the US.

The clever bit is that it lets you search using natural language queries, such as “What’s the status of my flight to New York?” or “Where is my hotel?”.

As well as travel, it also lets you do thing like track packages without you having to look up the tracking information if it’s already held in your Calendar or Gmail.

As well as a dash of Desktop Search and a hint of natural language, My Answers also adds a drop of Siri and allows you to use voice search if you are using an iPhone or Android smartphone.

It will also let you search for “my photos of Bali” or “my beach photos” to bring up all of the relevant photos you shared on Google+.

If this all sounds familiar, then for some people it will be - it is what is already available with the Google Now search assistant on mobile but expanded to include the desktop.

Google’s latest addition to its search functionality is similar to a new search feature that is being rolled out in Facebook - Graph Search, which I wrote about back in January.

Google says it has the privacy angle covered since you can turn it on and off for individual search sessions or for all your searches. The results are encrypted and - crucially - are only available within your search results if you are signed into Google.

This latter requirement is perhaps the most interesting part of the announcement. Once again, Google is adding cool new features to its products but only allowing you to use them if you are signed in.

What Google recognises - as does Facebook - is that having people signed in when using its services is vital. Anonymity has always been one of the great attractions of the web but little by little, users are giving up their anonymity in return for a better online experience.

Sadly, this probably means that travel companies are going to become even more reliant on Google than they already are.