Google squared

Google Squared is now available in Google Labs.

With Google Squared, you can choose a category of things you’d like to compare (like Colorado ski resorts), and then choose which attributes you want to look at for each item. It will automatically populate a few rows and columns for you, but it’s most useful if you really make it your own, and remove rows and columns you don’t want to see, and add rows and columns that you do want.

For example, right now for [Colorado ski resorts] I get columns labeled “Image,” “Description,” “Location,” “Snowmaking,” and “Telephone.” Out of these, I really just want location, so I can hit the “X” on all of the other columns. But I noticed that one of my favorite destinations, Telluride, isn’t in the list. So, in the lower-left of the Square where it says “Add items,” I type in “Telluride” and then click “Add.”

Now that I have a good list of resorts, I want to get an idea of how much skiing I can get done there. So, in the upper-right of the Square, I add columns for “Longest Run,” “Skiable Area,” “Base Elevation,” and “Summit Elevation.”

Here’s a video of me running through the above steps:

From here, I can edit any Square manually. This is automatically generated, so sometimes you need to clean things up a bit or just want to make your own notes. You can also just start with an empty Square and add items and attributes individually if you’re not getting the results you want with a search or want a more specific starting point.

Let me know in the comments of any particularly good (or hilariously bad) Squares you find. And when you’re done playing around with Google Squared, check out this great post about GoogleLookup by Beah. It has like a billion page views.