Have you tried the brand new Wonder Wheel feature for your Google search results? Google announced the new visual feature today at a press event. Here’s how it works: After you get your search results, click on “Show options” and select the multi-colored “Wonder Wheel” option. For this search (as for almost every Google search I do), I selected the keyword “Wonderwall.” And after selecting the Wonder Wheel option, this is what I get.
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Cool. This allows me to quickly sidestep the Oasis song, which I am not interested in—and quickly leap to results pertaining to the pseudo-Indian soundtrack George Harrison did for the 1968 film Wonderwall. So I click on “wonderwall george harrison,” and I get a whole new wheel of vaguely pertinent information:

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All right! Look at these new, fascinating results. “Cowboy music,” “dream scene”…. Ooh, look! Two of the most promising words in the English language have turned up: “love scene.”

Clicking on “love scene” leads to a whole variety of results, including a YouTube of the love scene from BladeRunner, as well as “Deepti Bhatnagar Love Scene,” a torrid (but SFW, I think?) clip from a Bollywood movie. Cha-ching! Soft petting and wet see-thru clothes, here I come. I didn’t even know I wanted to see this! But, boy, do I.

If you need me, I’ll be Wonder Wheelin’. There’s also the neat Timeline option, which shows your results in the form of a chronological graph.
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Ned Lannamann is a writer and editor in Portland, Oregon. He writes about film, music, TV, books, travel, tech, food, drink, outdoors, and other things.

23 replies on “You’re My Wonder Wheel”

  3. Uhmm, a cat, it is Google. If you don’t know how to get to Google, then I think your previous comment really applies here to you: “God, you can be dumb.”

  6. I think I’m having the same issue? where the fuck is “show options”?

    I tried the time line thing a few weeks ago and it was so inaccurate that it was basically useless. It was finding “OJ Simpson” in the 1400s.

  8. 3.SrIZgXIn-94wlXob+TM*mLQxO?qXv^53.CJPq8&n&9TxsQWuEHZC:YlqeLUD&S, try my spoilers. For some reason Ned seems to have too much pride to edit in some decent info.

  9. Actually, it looks like the wheel isn’t in “alternate views for search results” either. I guess ned’s planning to keep this one to himself. Matthew D, would you like to help out us morons?

  10. You don’t have to go to experimental.
    1) Go to google, Ned provided a link above
    2) Type in “A cat is an idiot” and press “Google Search”
    3) On the results page, click on “Show options” (Hint: use the “search this page” feature of your web browser. It is below the Google logo, and above the YouTube video on the top left corner)
    4) Click on “wonder wheel” or “timeline” (On the left hand side of the page, at the bottom of the list.)

    If you still can’t get it, try this:

    http://www.google.com/search?q=a%20cat%20i…

  11. No, my google doesn’t have it, and when I click your link there’s a prominent “The option you have selected is currently unavailable.” at the top. The feature seems to be buggy as fuck. Perhaps you should withhold judgement when calling people idiots, Matthew.

  13. I thought you used Safari? It is there, (and on Firefox and Chrome.)

    I did find a web browser that doesn’t show it though: 64 bit IE 8, (with no flash,) but if that is your web browser, then I think my original statement still holds.

  16. Okay, 10.4 Safari, (PPC. Intel is busy right now,) and it is still there…

    Right where it says “Video” on your screen it says “Show options…” in mine.

    Don’t blame Ned though, even if he had posted a link, it looks like your computer, (or maybe your isp,) sucks.

  21. Matthew, I meant that the wonder wheel wasn’t working on safari beta. i was unclear…

    anyway, it’s pretty clear that a lot of people are having a hard time getting wonder wheel to even appear. not sure where all the animosity came from in the beginning, I was just asking for a link to what I presumed was a linkable feature.

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