Latest Google Searches Gadget (beta)

Wouldn't it be cool to see what types of things people are searching for? Google have a projection of the current Google searches at the Googleplex (so I have read), so I thought it would be cool to make this into a Google Personalized Homepage widget. Again, it uses a PHP/MySQL backend, but a different AJAX technique. I wrote this as an inline gadget.

You can check out the webpage at http://search.gadgets.googlepages.com/. If you want to take it for a spin, click here: . Only one catch: if you use the Gadget, your searches will also be recorded, but in a completely anonymous form. No personal information is recorded. None.

So I think that's about it for me and Google Gadgets. They are really fun, and a great idea! But this last Gadget will definitely kill my hosting! Good thing its a new month soon, so I will have some more bandwidth available!

I really want to enhance the Gadget to include some neat effects when it updates the queries, eg: a fade/fly-in effect for new queries. If there is enough interest in the Gadget then I will definitely improve it! I have written it in with the objective of usability and reducing the bandwidth load on my PHP server, so it is nothing fancy.

You can specify how often it updates (lowest to every 10s, again, for bandwidth reasons). If/when I make the improvements it will update in realtime and will look really cool.

I wish I worked for Google! I would have so much fun stuff to do in my 20% time!

Please email me any feedback, either good or bad. Unlike my previous gadget, this one doesn't require the XmlHttp object (rather, it dynamically creates script tags), so it should work with more browsers. This is still very beta, but it has been tested in Firefox 1.5 and Internet Explorer 6. I might just leave this as 'beta' for a while...It seams that might be a pre-requisite to working for Google! And nothing on a Google page is truly complete until you add that magic 4-letter word! :)