Google has been dominating the search market so much that sometimes we feel it odd when we realise Yahoo! had been around in the search business even before Google came into existence. And Google has been constantly redefining search with methods like instant search and Google News.

India's own Rediff.com has been around for quite some time. One of the reasons it has still managed to stay relevant is that it continues to experiment. Some time ago, it revamped it's home page. The change in design was so radical that many were shocked to see ‘almost nothing' in the home page, but it turned out to be a success.

Rediff has now come out with something called ‘real-time news'. Again, the design is simple - a search box and a few search terms listed below it. Comparison is inevitable with Google News, but Rediff seems to have realised it and made the search more relevant for India, as the tagline says ‘India As It Happens'. Though it is called ‘Realtime News', it may not show the latest news on top as Google News does, but the more important and relevant news. So, if you were searching for Sachin Tendulkar, the top results thrown up by the search would have something about him that people are really looking for, rather than what he achieved (or did not) today.

And just as in Google's instant search, as you type in the search field, you can see suggestions popping up, indicating the current search trend. But unlike in Google, the suggestions that pop up may not be the same tomorrow, as the search may be totally different. Rediff's new search is still in its infancy and needs improvement. For instance, a search for ‘Google Instant Search' throws up a totally irrelevant ‘Whygo Automates 300 Public Video Conferencing Rooms in North America', but as the service is still in beta, and as it is a bold experiment, we have to give it a long rope and see how it develops.

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