Interactive Rich Media

Google offers a custom search engine (beta version) to webmasters to create a local search tool on a website or a blog. A quick and easy way consist in integrating a javascript code provided by Google on your webpage. The search engine can be customized to include more sites or to adapt the style of the results pages to the style of the website. Google provides tutorials, FAQ’s, developer documentation and featured examples to help webmasters to design the search tool.

Google’s ”Terms of Use” state that you may not in any way frame, cache or modify the Results produced by the Google search engine. The results pages include advertisements placed by Google. For enterprises wanting ad-free results pages, Google offers various price plans for the Google site search.

A solution used in the past by several developers was based on javascript code to open a small search window for doing a local search on a website. An example for searching the saraproft.lu website is given below:

=======================================

<p><a href=”javascript:(function()

{ p=prompt(’Entrez un texte pour faire une recherche dans le site saraproft.lu via Google Luxembourg.’,”);

if(p)

{ document.location.href=’http://www.google.lu/search?

q=site:saraproft.lu ‘+escape(p)} })();” >

Search</a></p>

=======================================

This solution has some disadvantages with the security mecanisms of the new browser generation and is no longer recommended.

In 2003, Konfabulator, a startup, released a paid software that consisted of cool standalone applets that did all sorts of stuff from telling the time, to monitoring stock market prices, to displaying your calendar. Mid-2005, Yahoo acquired the startup, and then offered Konfabulator as freeware, both for Mac OS X and Windows. They call it now widgets. In 2006, Google introduced Google gadgets, a precursor has been the side panels in the Google Desktop.

Google Gadgets are interactive mini-applications that can be placed anywhere on your desktop or on your iGoogle page to show you new email, weather, photos and personalized news. Other gadgets include the clock, calendar, scratch pad, todo list and many more. Google Gadgets are made by users that offer cool and dynamic content and can be placed also on any page on the web.

All Desktop gadgets use the Gadget API. They can also use core JavaScript features and the XMLHttpRequest class. Windows-only Desktop gadgets can include native Windows libraries and use selected Search APIs to take advantage of Google Desktop search features.

Google offers a Desktop SDK that has everything you need to write Google Gadgets and to integrate desktop searching into your applications. A development forum, a FAQ webpage and a hall of fame are available to provide valuable feedback on creating gadgets.

Google gadgets can also been used in Lively, a 3D virtual experience that is the newest addition to Google Labs and that was released as beta on July 10th, 2008. Lively gadgets provide rich media and interaction capabilities to users.

A great site for gadgets, widgets and SEO is Seoish, run by Patrick Sexton alias Feedthebot.

J’ai installé aujourd’hui Google Desktop sur mon portable. Google Desktop permet de faire des recherches locales aussi facilement que sur le Web et de trouver et de lancer des applications et des fichiers en quelques clics.  Google Desktop permet d’ajouter des plug-ins Google Gadgets pour personnaliser son bureau et pour consulter les actualités, la météo et bien d’autres informations. Pour aller un pas plus loin, on peut installer sa page d’accueil personnalisée avec iGoogle.

Il y a un blog officiel de Google Desktop qui constitue une source très riche d’informations concernant Google Desktop.