As a surfer, I like this. But as a webmaster...
 

I was just wondering what the official start date for the NHL Playoffs was, so I went to the old Google & searched "nhl playoffs 2013 start date" and this is what came up:

http://greenguysboard.com/greenguy/GoogleNHL.png

From a surfer's standpoint, that's very handy. But, from a webmaster's POV, that's 1 less click on my website if I was ranking high for that.

Had that info not popped up, I'm sure I'd be on http://www.playoffstatus.com/ right now, but screw him!

Your thoughts?

Since I don't own any hockey sites or sports sites of any kind, I think that anything that gets someone's sports-related question answered quickly so they have more time to surf porn and maybe discover something worth paying for is a good thing.

When I'm tired of blaming Illegal Tube Sites, I blame Facebook...and Sports!

:D

by now we all know that google is evil.

GOOGLE IS FUCKING EVIL

Yes I'm with Bill, I think that totally sucks ass that google is doing that!

But exactly when is this going to hurt any of us? I run adult sites and several kinds of non adult sites, and none of them give "real time" info. So at no point will this affect me as a webmaster, but it has proven useful to me as a civilian several times. And I am guessing that this is the same for most, probably all, of us. So in this case I say "good for Google" (but I reserve the right to hate them for other things).

...but if you ran http://www.playoffstatus.com/...

Yeah, but I don't - so fuck 'em. :)

Then they will need to reinvent themselves or turn it into a tube

|couch|

That's pretty much what Google said.

I searched for another term and this happened. I think it may have been a drink recipe or something and I remember thinking how awesome it was. However I have to agree, it sucks for webmasters at that point. The only upside here is it only lists a generic date and not any actual game times.

Well that sucks. If I am working on the same principles as Google, why am I not making as much money as Google?
:(
Oh hang on, unlike Google, I pay all my taxes - that is probably why!

G. you realise that you are contributing to the problem! I just replied to you in another thread, but was not sure how to spell "Eccleston" so I did a Google search "dr who actors" and got a nice little side scrolly of the main cast from the past 50 years of the show, and of the spin off serieses. Clicking on any one of them gave me a nice bio of the actor, no clicking on search results needed!

Indeed, google is doing it with a lot of things, not just sports. Actors, yes, but even a lot of businesses are getting the google treatment. Try searching for just about any company out there now, local or otherwise. If they have a website or not it won't matter, google provides you with their contact info and other information on them right there boldly to the right of the search results. No need whatsoever to ever go to anyone's site ever again, right?

The webmaster side of GG is spot-on with his concern.

Earlier I did a search for currency exchange pesos to dollars because of a possible trip and not only did G display the rate but a calculator popped up as well. No need to visit any one of the websites that probably made money off of adsense.

As an individual looking for this info was great.

I just went to Google to search out a weather forecast site to check tomorrow's weather. No surprise that the search page gave today's weather at the top, in the same way G. got his playoffs data. However I noticed that Google gave a slightly different weather forecast to the one I heard on the radio an hour ago. So, curious, I went to the first few websites listed, all of them agreed with the weather forecast on the radio and disagreed with Google. At least two of them got their forecast from the UK Met. Office. In other words the information given on Google's search page is wrong (either that or everyone else is wrong, including the UK Meteorological Office)!