4 ms·

A big part of how Google won was that they made everything on Yahoo obsolete except for the search box. Now somebody just needs to make the search box obsolete

• bensummers 17y ago
  What are you imagining will replace it? Typing in a short query and getting results is a pretty minimal UI. Google has been steadily getting better at making it even more useful, for example, their calculator feature, weather, sports results for major sporting events, and so on.
  • riffer 17y ago
    The UI is minimal, and that is a very significant advantage. I don't have clarity around something that is superior. In terms of properties, though, the UI would be minimal and getting results would be as powerful as writing arbitrary SQL against a backend. If somebody comes up with something that meets both of those conditions, I think it'll be a game-changer.
    • bensummers 17y ago
      You can do that in a search box by allowing advanced syntax. For example, Google allows 'keyword site:news.ycombinator.com', and there's no reason you can't extend this with full boolean logic and nested bracketed clauses. We do this in my product, which is sort of a semantic web inspired wiki with very precise metadata. You can enter a simple query, and it uses everything at its disposal to get you good results ranked appropriately. But in the same box, you can write arbitrarily complex queries, even doing graph traversal across the linked objects in the store. However, simple one or two word queries still work. The only slight concession to complexity that we've made is that when you start entering a complex query, the app draws a picture which explains how the query is interpreted, as a little aid to the user. But it's still a simple text box with a button next to it.