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Anyway, here are some thoughts, on what it's good for, how it could be improved, and what it means:
As I see it, Webquotes has two uses. First, Webquotes provides a simple service, giving you information on what websites are saying about other websites on a given topic. This strikes me as only moderately useful. Users don't want to meditate over what site they should click on. They want to make a quick decision, take a peek at the site and back out if it doesn't look right. Google is good enough at finding material, sorting it by relevance and authority, and making the jump-off simple and regular, that reading a mishmash of prose from authorities of varying quality and differing opinions isn't the most attractive option.
That said, the functional side has one outstanding use: finding out what people are saying about *particular sites*. Rare is the day my mind forms the double-headed question "What are websites saying about whatever websites are the top websites for the search 'sea slugs'?" But I often wonder what people are saying about *my* site on sea slugs. And I've found a secondary use: "What sites are talking about other sites about sea slugs?" And can I get them to link to me? (Note: I don't have a site on sea slugs; that was just an example.)
Put another way, I recently showed the service to the person who runs our company's website. She was ecstatic! Now she had a ready source of quotes about the site. Curiosity? Vanity? The am-I-hot-or-not effect? No, she's going to edit out the good ones, and put them on her quarterly report.
That said, the interface is not designed to return opinions on individual sites. You can't ask a site: query. Of course, you can generally type in the name of the site (or page) and get the Webquotes, but this doesn't always work, and you always have to wade through other sites' reviews. Other Google-standard queries are equally impermissible, so you can't ask for link://example.com and get Webquotes about all the sites which link to your site. Pity.
So, the second use. I, at least, take it as an interesting window into Google's mind. I personally assume that it's providing convenient access to something Google uses—that Google uses Webquotes internally, to hone the engine's understanding of the topical sphere of a given page. (Sure the page has "lobster" on it as often as it has "sea slugs," but all the Webquoters talk about sea slugs. Therefore, serve it for sea slugs, and bury it for lobsters.) Surely they've got a similar database of click-text, and perhaps this is even an extension of it. It's possible it's not a window into Google's mind, but just a window into one 20%-ers mind. But I doubt it.
In support of this, there's Sets. There's hardly a single external use for Sets, other than novelty. I'm fond of trying to make odd sets. Can you make a set that includes both Wham! and Spinoza? Oh, I suppose it might work for keyword suggestion--yawn. But internally? Knowing how keywords interrelate must be absolutely priceless. Surely Google prefers a sea slug page to have other sea-slug related words on it—eg., clams, nudibranchs. And a high-ranking sea-slug page that has a lot of words belonging to the set "porno," should be demoted.
Anyway, those are my thoughts. What do you think?
[edited by: vitaplease at 6:20 am (utc) on June 17, 2004]
