Google now offers real-time scores and links to game recaps and highlight tapes of NHL hockey games, the company announced in a small blog post this afternoon. Just enter “NHL” in the search box and you’ll see a display like the one above.
The links are to pages on NHL.com, something that other sports leagues would be remiss to neglect to offer the search engine themselves. This example of structured data displayed as details on a search results page points towards a future where all websites offer structured data to Google and Google indexes it in real-time. If you remember poor Yahoo Search Monkey, it was just ahead of its time and at the wrong company.
This is exactly the kind of recommended real-time content based on structured data that mobile users will find useful, too. How about that GoogleTV in your living room? “When I say Google Hockey, TV, I want you to display the scores on all the games being played.”
Stock quotes are already offered in structure, real-time formats. What else is already available like this? What else would you like to see available?
In some ways this is a small development, but it points towards a much larger trend that will radically change the way online publishers and readers experience each other.
