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Perhaps one of the most interesting, but as yet most under-noticed, bits of technology to come out of Google in the past year is Google Co-op Custom Search Engines. Google CSE’s give users the power to create a search engine specifically tailored to any topic they can imagine.
A few of us at work got together and tagged a set of websites about the Blizzard game World of Warcraft, and I wrapped that up in a very simple interface at wow.unto.net. I also added a simple OpenSearch description document so you can add this search engine to your web browser’s search box.
While this particular custom search engine pertains to a rather casual topic, we’ve already seen much more important uses, such as the Real Climate search engine and the CS Curriculum Search. I believe this is just the beginning: when we put the power of search in the hands of the community then truly great, and truly unpredictable, things will start happening.