Google’s Mayer On “Contextual Discovery” Search

TechCrunch has live blog coverage of the interview by Michael Arrington and Google’s Marissa Mayer at the LeWeb ’10 in Paris, France. Mayer talked about Google’s next big thing, she coined it “contextual discover.”

Contextual discovery, Mayer explained, encompasses “local Search, Maps, Earth, Latitude, and all the local products.” By “taking a users location as a piece of context for finding what they want without them actually searching for anything,” Mayer added.

TechCrunch describes this as “Google results without the search.” Yes, Google is offering up results, possibly search results, without your actual intent searching for keywords. A lot like how AdSense shows ads based on the contextual relevancy of the page, Google can use other signals to show relevant ads and search results to a user based on location specific data.

Mayer gave one example:

The idea is to push information to people. It’s location in context. Inside the browser and a toolbar, can we look at where people have been going on the web — then we deliver it. But it’s a big UI challenge. In the browser it might be a panel on the right or bottom that complements your browsing. On the mobile phone, it’s where you are in the physical world. We can figure out where the next most useful information is. In a restaurant maybe it’s a menu. Or maybe it’s a social menu. It’s about explicit and implicit location.

Yes, Google wants to “push information to people” based on their location and what they are doing.

When will we see what Google is working on? Mayer said, it will be out next year.