Google moves to provide more rounded search results. Daylife.com has been doing this kind of more contextualized search results for a bit - looks like Google steals their fire. The basic idea is to present results from various media related to your search term. For example, a search for "Iran Nuclear" will bring up video, podcasts, news stories, local related news, maps, blogs, finance, books, etc. It's like a personalized home page for any topic. This type of searching is called "verical search"
What are the implications for politics? I think that various forms of non-text media will gain increasing relevancy. Whereas currently, a searcher needs to specifically search out video/audio, it will now come by default - which means that gaining a knowledge and expert usage of these other web media forms will become de-rigeur. Video embarassments such as the "macacca" indicent will spread even more quickly. Video producers adept at creating relevant tags and content will gain increased traffic. YouTube will grow even faster.
Article reviewing Google Universal and the concept of verical search: http://searchengineland.com/070516-143312.php
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