GeeKs Blogging @ dotCOM

Google gives words a new meaning

by Nitin Jain

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Now that Internet is beginning to threaten so many Traditional Trades and territories, things just keep coming with a greater force. Twitter, TV Channels, and other social media have defined the doom of the Newspapers as we know them today. There have been several reports, where people prefer using some of the online media for getting information faster rather than waiting for the newspaper to arrive at the doors the next day.

Dictionary is another one of these domains where some of the traditional websites like the Free Online Dictionary and more traditionally Wikidepia (though more oriented towards Encyclopedia) have been taking more and more of the pie in comparison to the traditional ones in the Book Form Factor. Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com have also been some of the more popular ones.

It seems Google has taken a plunge into this world too by launching the Google Dictionary.

I just tried a few words and the results seem to be pretty decent. It comes out with some clear advantages which could help making it the Dictionary of choice.

The design is simple and minimalistic. This makes the page load faster.

I noticed that ads are missing on the page. Forget about external advertising, Google Ads are missing too. But, then, I guess that is just a matter of time. However, for the time being, it gives the page a clean kind of look.

Seeing is believing! Take a look at the image below.

The page is easily segregated into Google Dictionary meaning towards the top, and the other results from other websites titled, “Web Definitions” in the last section. The middle section provides other words with semantically similar words, with the label, “Related Phrases”. More on that later.

The results returned in the Web Definitions section are from amongst some of the typical websites that we have been using up till now, like Princeton, Wikipedia, etc. etc.

One of the features I particularly liked was the ability to star the word I just searached. While preparing for my Management entrance examinations, I remember it being a feature I used to crave for! And, this seems to be only one of the several features borrowed from its more popular and the youthful cousin, the formidable Google Reader.

All the words that have recently been starred are shown in a list towards the right, for easy reference later. Just below the Starred Words appear the recent searches tab. I, personally, see this as yet another attempt by Google to invade on my privacy. This feature is obviously linked to my personal login id for Google to keep track. Yet, this is just one more instance in the list where Google collates yet more information about me as an individual.

Does Google Dashboards really help? Give me your take on this.

I searched for “dog”, and the Related Phrases section returned phrases like, hangdog, hearing dog, sea dog, guard dog, etc. So, probably you can make out what I am talking about.

Poof.. does this new section by google run out of features ever..?!!

Another interesting feature is returning a set of images, something like Google Images search, corresponding to the term just searched. A Visual Image definitely helps in better memory retention than just reading words, and their meanings. It is easier to teach a young kid the meaning of words this way.

The words I searched for, returned the meaning, plural, person, tenses, corresponding participles, usage in sentences, Synonym, Antonym, slang usage, and so much more!

Near the end of it, the most interesting feature – The language to language translation. Towards the top, where we enter the search term, google if offering one more choice, that of translation of the word into some other language. So much for Google’s investment on Google Translate feature which helps translate words and sentences into multiple languages. I am throwing out the English <> Hindi dictionary weighing nearly 10 lbs. out of the window ASAP.

Shortcut tip: when searching on the Google search page, use the syntax “define: search term“. For eg. “define:conundrum”

Also, we have reports arriving telling us about a Firefox Add-on which adds the option Define “<search term>” as an option on the right click menu options. Reduces Google Dictionary to being just one click away, doesn’t it?!!

I have seen extensive reviews of it over the past few days on
Texhnixupdate ,
GSM Arena ,
NKJLive ,
TechCrunch and
The Next Web among others.

I see this as an example of my pizza with all the possible toppings on top ever invented in the world, on top of it. I guess this leaves the competition faaar behind with all the features. The new innovation by google gets thumbs up from me. What’s your take?

Aaaah.. don’t miss the official Google copyright and link towards the end of the page, when you check out Google Dictionary here.

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