

Google's silent experiment .. What do you love ? - amritayannayak
http://www.wdyl.com

======
jaysonelliot
Am I the only person who's suspicious of a site that purports to be from
Google, yet is not on a Google domain, doesn't work without the "www" and
whose credibility comes entirely from the fact that there's a Google logo on
it?

EDIT: I'm expecting it to be a real thing, but it's just weird that sources
like TechCrunch and Fast Company don't have any statement from the company,
just a "tipster," and it's not on a Labs domain like most Google Labs
products.

~~~
AlexC04
and of course the whois information

    
    
        Domain wdyl.com:
          Margaret McLaughlin
          76 Ninth Avenue
          New York, NY 10013 US
        
        Administrative contact:
        Technical contact:
        Billing contact:
          
          Margaret McLaughlin
          
          76 Ninth Avenue
          New York, NY 10013 US
          Phone: +1.2125659741
          Fax: 
        
        Record dates:
          Record created on: 2005-09-27 18:18:10 UTC
          Record modified on: 2011-06-24 16:36:56 UTC
          Record expires on: 2011-09-27 UTC
        
        Nameservers:
          myns2.fabulous.com:
            208.48.81.137
          myns1.fabulous.com:
        
    

Note taht the domain registrar "FABULOUS" is specifically intended as a
service for "Domainers" people who buy and park||minimally build out||put up
forsale signs on domains with the intention of turning a profit.

Check out the terms of opening a Fabulous account:

    
    
        Request Membership
    
        To be eligible for a Fabulous account we require 
        that you meet at least one of the following:
    
            Domain portfolio must generate US$750+ per month
            Transfer 750+ domains to Fabulous
    
        If your portfolio generates US$750 a month or you are
        willing to transfer 750+ domains to Fabulous, please 
        complete the form below.
    
    

So WDYL.com on a domainer's registrar and also a pretty shitty site? Yeah,
more than just a little suspicious. I'm feeling pretty secure in saying that
it's 100% _not_ google .. but I'd love to know a little more about this
Margaret McLaughlin I bet a search would turn up a number of other domains
that she's got her whois information tacked on to.

 __EDIT __oh my ... would you look at that. 76 Ninth Avenue in New York is
apparently Google's new Manhattan office! Maybe it _IS_ google.

Damn. Now I've gone from thinking it's fake to thinking it has some chance of
being real.

~~~
jaysonelliot
Well, the address on the whois record is just down the street from my office.
I could stop by there this afternoon and see who's behind this.

EDIT - Never mind, I see that's the Google CoHo. Guess we'll just wait and
see.

------
kaerast
The site is awful, no explanation at all on the frontpage - it just asks you
to provide them with something you love without any incentive. Then there's
the slider thing on the top left of the search results which adds nothing at
all.

"Explore your mom in 3D" was pretty amusing though.

------
dendory
Why is that site registered to:

Domain wdyl.com: Margaret McLaughlin 76 Ninth Avenue New York, NY 10013 US

Nameservers: myns2.fabulous.com: 208.48.81.137 myns1.fabulous.com:
208.48.81.136

~~~
EwanToo
Good question, but the original site itself exists at

<http://www.google.com/whatdoyoulove/>

I assume it's a Google engineer's side project which has become a bit bigger
over time

~~~
macavity23
That site barfs with an 'over application quota', whereas the original link
works fine. Strange...

------
oldstrangers
I used it on my phone and entered 'craft beer', and I was actually impressed.
I don't think it means to offer anything new and revolutionary, but it does a
great job of showing people how they can use the web in different ways
(outside of just searching) to interact with things they enjoy. This would be
great for people who are new to the internet. Obviously, HN is not the
intended audience.

------
varjag
I tried "my wife". God, so creepy..

(I know I know, it asks "what")

~~~
fedd
"find my wife nearby" "explore my wife in 3d"

------
valisystem
The idea is great but somehow the suggestions are pretty weak. I don't know if
it can be refined to something relevant, even with results improved with user
tracking data.

------
amritayannayak
The search button is shaped like a little heart .... I've never seen something
like this from Google before !

~~~
Veera
I guess the intention is not to 'search' but to say that you love the terms
you entered in the textbox. So, IMO the heart button looks very suitable for
that.

~~~
amritayannayak
Yeah I guess so. I seems to designed to give results for abstract things like
"blue jeans" rather than a specific query like "nokia e65".

~~~
kaerast
Indeed. Perhaps the better title would be "what do you care about?", "what are
you passionate about?" or "what are you interested in?" Asking what people
love doesn't really explain what the site is for.

------
Zakharov
I typed in "cho", and the suggested search was "choking". I was going to type
in "chocolate", but ok...

~~~
stefs
seems like david carradine was in the closed beta.

------
fedd
i love cats, and it didn't find anything in product search!

"Buy all kinds of cats stuff with Product Search No results were found.

 _Polite cough_ Couldn't find anything. Sorry. Try something simpler?"

------
growt
I had to enter "boobs" the result is just hilarious :)

~~~
valisystem
"Find boobs nearby on Maps"

------
ChrisArchitect
pretty good way to show off google's array of products. But also makes me
wonder about the 'too many things going on at google' thing

------
lhnz
"Free Will". The results made no sense to me.

------
nvictor
oh geez internets, are we speculating over who owns a domain now?..

