[magicalist]

Google has been keeping users from calculator web sites with its calculator/unit converter since before Mark Zuckerberg even wrote Facemash[1]. A fairly obscure timer feature that only shows up when you search for a particular phrase is nothing like search portals of old, nor is this a departure from the different search result widgets they've had for a decade now.

This feels like a feature that the OS should have but most don't, and I'll use it like I use google as a calculator or as a dictionary: if it's faster to open a tab and put in the query than it is to launch a program or a particular page and start a timer there. I did the same thing when I was on windows and it was faster to ask google than to run "calc" and then do the calculation, and it was the same tradeoff when I switched to a mac and it turned out spotlight could do many calculations even faster with just a command-space.

[1] http://mentalized.net/journal/2003/08/12/google_rocks_my_wor...

[thomasd]

Agree. What Google did replaced plenty of functionalities that are available on desktop (math, spell-check, dictionary).

But their recent card-based solution to a lot of searches seems to show that they're trying to keep users on Google-owned properties. Try searching for a movie review. You'll notice that everything that pertains to the movie is shown on top and on the right. Clicking on actors lead to yet another google search result with another card on the right. In short, you're being kept within Google.

Does it get you the information you're looking for in as little time as possible? Absolutely. But they're doing this at the expense of the sites they took the data from.

[magicalist]

> But they're doing this at the expense of the sites they took the data from

That would be Freebase, which is what it's for.

I'm not really seeing your point for that example, though. Maybe for something simpler it would be true, but if I'm looking for a movie review, the information in the top right isn't sufficient for anything besides seeing a wikipedia summary, a screenshot, and some of the actors in it. Anything deeper would require clicks into the actual content, which is actually an apt analog to a simple timer not replacing anything of substance.

[jfoster]

You're right that they keep you on Google, and that they're taking market share from sites that used to serve such queries. From a consumer's perspective, it's possibly a better experience than it used to be, though. The only risk (which you alluded to) is that they lose focus on making a good quality search engine because they're too busy making little widgets. I don't think there's any evidence that's happening, though.

[welly]

Alfred app (http://www.alfredapp.com/) on OS X.

define <a word> 1 + 2 open <filename> etc.

It's "magical".