Google has come out with a really clever gizmo that they're calling 'Google in Quotes'. Basically it pits two political figures from some major countries together allowing searchers to type in a search term in order to compare what they say about the subject. The experiment comes in various country flavours - US with McCain and Obama, UK with Brown and Cameron, India with Manmohan Singh and Lal Krishna Advani and Canada represented by Stephen Harper and Stephane Dion.
As you can see from the screen shot you can either choose your own terms or click on any of those provided by Google. If either speaker has made several comments you can click the 'spin' wheel to see more of them. Google is very keen to point out "Quotes and their speakers are determined automatically by a computer program and we don't guarantee the completeness or accuracy of the information you may see. The dates you see represent when the article in which the quote appears was added to Google News."
It's as well that they've put that disclaimer in, but of course there is always the concern that unintended bias may come in - I can't believe that McCain hasn't mentioned 'Britain' once in his speeches (though I'm happy to be corrected by more knowledgeable readers) so I'd be unwilling to use it in place of any type of serious research. There is also the binary element to contend with - few things are either one or the other, so this is reductionism at its most extreme - it would be nice to pick and choose your own talking heads, but given that this is a new experiment it would be unfair to be critical of it at this stage for not offering more.
It's a really interesting innovation and I hope that it's something Google is going to explore and expand in the coming months.
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