Google and The Wonder Wheel
There are exciting changes afoot in Google search. Run a search, and under the search box you will see a new navigation choice called “Show Options”
I initially discovered this by conducting a Local Search, but it is appearing in general web searching now, too. Exploring through the new navigation options that appear on the left give you a whole new way of exploring the data.
The “Wonder Wheel” presents you with a graphic representation of related search concepts:
Once you have the Wonder Wheel open, then you can run any search (local or not) and get access to this cool new tool.
How might the Wonder Wheel be working? On the one hand it might simply be using the Google “Similar To” functionality. However, a Wonder Wheel search on Susan Hallam brings up quite different results in addition to the normal related results. It is incorporating information that is also contained in my various social networking profiles. It would appear to be taking into consideration the typical relationships between web pages, but also incorporating the relationships real people have with other people and organisations.
In addition to the Wonder Wheel, you can explore by Content type, Recency, and a very interesting Time Line search:
I’m not seeing official information from Google to signpost to
This post was written by Susan Hallam - 
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One Response to “Google and The Wonder Wheel”
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This seems like a very visual way to display results, which for thos eof us with a more ‘mind map’ rather than a linear way of thinking could be quite good fun.
It does feel like a slightly watered down version of the Visual Thesaurus though. http://www.visualthesaurus.com/, which I use an awful lot in writing.