15th June marks the launch of Google’s “newest” search product, Google U.S. Government Search, which further exemplifies the company’s growing interest in Washington D.C.

U.S. Gov’t Search will now allow users to search for U.S. Government information all from one location, and keep up-to-date with government news. You may specify whether you’d like to search by Federal, State, or Local government, or if you’d rather search the entire web.

Beneath the search box is government-specific news and information provided both by government agencies and/or various press outlets.

While this all sounds fine and dandy, I can’t help but wonder if it is merely a repackaging and revamping of Google’s old specialized government search, which was (and still is) located at http://www.google.com/unclesam and has been around for some time now.

With the old gov’t search, you could do much the same as this new offering. The only thing missing is the government specific news and headlines. And if this is the case, why act like its a new service? I guess the answer to that would probably be that this way it will get more press coverage. If Google were to make an annoucement that they revamped an old service, it wouldn’t be as exciting. Ah, marketing.

Haimadan
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