I know it's unusual for me to make posts about Google or any kind of web thing at all, but I can't remain silent any longer. I wont attempt to use the word "semantics" because I don't know what it means (I have since looked it up). With that being said, I will begin.
Maybe a month or so ago, maybe more, I noticed that on Google's front page they spoke of catalogs.google.com that apparently would let me browse mail-order catalogues they have scanned. I was facinated, and amused. Tease me if you like if you've seen Fight Club, but since my girlfriend and I are getting an apartment next year, I went to the Ikea Catalogue and began perusing. It's really quick, and offers a bunch of different page views. It will never replace the feeling I had at age ten, looking at Lego in the WishBook, but it's still a fun service.
The ability to do a keyword search was quite interesting, and remarkably accurate considering they're dealing with tiny-scanned-smudgy magazine font. I did get a few red herrings, but it made leafing more efficient.
Semantics.
Comments
Ryan Hillier - March 19, 2002 11:39 am
Rob, the semantifical consequences of not semantifying the semantics of this situation are simply semantic! Please reconsider semantification.
Now that I've made myself look like a fool, I must say that I share the same excitement about Google's online catalog system as Rob. The amount of time & effort it must have taken to scan all those catalogs, and then make the text selectable simply baffles me. God bless those Googlers, they work so hard for the people.
will - March 19, 2002 1:32 pm
Succumbing to the Ikea nesting instinct?
Consider yourself officially teased.
vince - March 19, 2002 1:59 pm
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I live three blocks from an ikea, and I love the place. Not so much because it's trendy, but because it's hella cheap.
The quality of the stuff isn't fantastic, but it's 'da bomb' for young people to get furnishings.
Alan - March 19, 2002 2:16 pm
And it lasts - I have some Ikea stuff back to undergrad which I left in 1985. THey also ship sofas halfway across the country for under $100.00.
Random Corporate Raider - March 19, 2002 4:20 pm
As a monkey who makes my eLiving (or is it iLiving now) buy enticing purchasers, buy garnering shoppers, buy gathering groups of you to give my paycheck signer money, I'm very psyched about google.com doing a catalog website. I posted my catalog the second week and can't wait for the beta to end and for the commercial orgy to ensue on yet another non-profit search service.
Peter Rukavina - March 19, 2002 5:13 pm
Just FYI, Sears Whole Home will ship a large sofa from their store in Burlington, Ontario to Charlottetown for $35.
KJB - March 20, 2002 11:25 am
About four minutes from my house there is a new Ikea being built in the heart of the suburban-sprawl-scale-model that has only arrived in the last five years. Outside the Ikea there is an enormous sign with a shitty pressboard Ikea product (turns out it is a lamp) and in loud Sans Serif letters: "A New Lamp Can Brighten a Room Just Like a New Store Can Brighten a City."
Which, when you break it down, is a fucking insult to the city and the room, which have until now (according to those Swedish bastards) have been in some kind of prolonged darkness. One that will be rescued, as the room with the lamp, by this big heartless squat ugly tank of a building done in 1990 Detroit Lions colours (pre Barry Sanders).
So yeah, Vince you should be lobbing empty beer bottles into that blue sauna. Many beer bottles. Hella beer bottles.
Alan - March 20, 2002 12:34 pm
Its a little known fact that the Swedes ruled an empire larger than that of any Euopean nation in the mid-1700's. I like to stay on their good side. Wouldn't want the Swedes to rise again...
Jesse Estevez - March 21, 2002 11:34 am
I didn't know about this yet! The text search is absolutely amazing. How do these do this? The must do OCR on every scan, and for every word on every scan slap it and coords in a db? Then, they search the db, find the words, show the images, and use some badass gdlib type stuff to highlight the text in the image? Amazing, really, and truly, fantastic.
But then again, I guess we should expect technical grow-how from Google.
heyotwell - March 22, 2002 10:55 am
Best thing about IKEA? The Swedish meatballs at the cafeteria. Mmm.