Google Squared: a reasonable start

Google has launched Google Squared, a rich search feature that is meant to take the good fight to the over hyped and under delivering Wolfram Alpha.

Google Squared attempts to group search results based on a query, for example American Presidents. The results are delivered in a dynamic spreadsheet layout that can be built upon, or edited. The benefit is the delivery of easy to digest results.

Many have speculated that Google Squared was meant to be Google’s play at Wolfram Alpha, but it’s a different tool. Squared has a better depth of results because results are based on Google’s extensive search index, vs Wolfram Alpha’s requirement that data be added to the system. Wolfram though has better depth in terms of refined queries: if it has the data, you can break it out far better vs Google Squared, and you can do a lot more with it.

The surprise comparison is one to Microsoft’s Bing. I still can’t replicate the results in the Bing ads here in Australia (I’m still not sure if that’s geo-related), but I can group hotels for example in Google Squared. The Google results don’t offer usable price and star ratings (very hit and miss), but at least it does group without a fuss. Here’s a comparison:

Google Squared on “hotels in New York”

Bing on “hotels in New York” (notably with Bing set to United States)

I’m not enthralled by Google Squared because it’s not that exciting, but likewise it could become a useful tool for users that require grouped data.