I’d once read somewhere that Shakespeare did not enjoy the luxury of a dictionary in his time.  I don’t know if it’s true or not, but even if he did have a dictionary at hand, he wouldn’t be able to look up a word unless he knew how to spell it!  And, that is true for all of us.

Which brings me to Google.  Today, we take the Internet – and Google – for granted.  All the world’s a mere search box and a mouse click away.  But, what would happen if we did not know the name of the thing we were searching for?  How would we “google” it then?  What would we type in that ubiquitous search box?!

Every time I look, Google seems to be upto something new and exciting!  Sometimes, it’s scary to think of just how dependant I am on Google… and it only keeps getting worse (or better?!)

A recent discovery I came across, thanks to my religious visits to Google Labs is a feature called Google Sets:

“Google Sets” automatically create sets of items from a few examples

That’s the description.  That’s it.  No reams of web pages explaining the functionality and what it can or cannot do.  Just one line.  But, imagine the power…

With Google Sets, you don’t even need to know the name of the entity you’re trying to find.  Just key in a few names from its category, and you get a complete list of choices to scan.  That elusive luxury brand, that particular movie of Tom Cruise you’re trying to pinpoint, that ERP software you’d heard your client mention just once… every thing can now be found, thanks to this technology.

The service is still in beta, but already looks pretty impressive. Give it a test ride.  You never know, when you’ll need it.