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Google has “officially” launched a new search function designed to help users learn details about movies and find local theaters where the films are playing. This service was only recently launched with very little fanfare, and was first reported at www.cheaphostingdirectory.com last week. The original article speculated that the new service was launched to coincide with the publicity surrounding the Academy Awards.

According to Jess Lee, Associate Product Manager at Google, as reported on the Google web site - Google has created a new “movie:” operator. As stated by Google, the new operator “enables you to find movie-related information faster and more easily, whether you’re looking for titles or actors, director or genre, famous lines or obscure plot details”.

Here’s how to use it - go to www.google.com and type in a search with the following syntax - movie: search term. Note: you must use a lower case ‘m’ in the word movie or the searches won’t work correctly!

Examples of searches that I conducted for this piece include the following:

movie: may the force be with you - this returns results featuring the Star Wars films and also a few random results where the reviewers mentioned the famous line in reviewing a different film.

movie: surfer with Judge Reinhold in high school - returns results for Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

movie: kung fu fighting sequences - results are what you’d probably expect with Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee films and The Matrix in the mix.

You can also search for movies showing in your local area by typing in movie: zip code or city, state. For instance - movie: Lafayette, Indiana returns theaters in Lafayette with the movies playing, and also the show times.

Another feature of the service is a list of ‘frequently mentioned terms’. In the case of The Matrix this list includes: ‘keanu reeves, laurence fishburne, carrie-anne moss, special effects, hugo weaving, wachowski brothers, dark city, agent smith, joe pantoliano, and science fiction’. It is also possible to search within a certain set of reviews.

A nice comedic touch at the bottom of the search results pages is the following statement published by Google: “The selection and placement of reviews on this page were determined automatically by a computer program. No movie critics were harmed or even used in the making of this page”.

According to Google, movie show times are also available for wireless users on Google SMS by sending a text message to 46645 on most mobile phones.

About the Author
Derek Vaughan has been actively marketing on the Internet since 1995. Mr. Vaughan has marketed products at the Walt Disney Company as the online marketing manager of ecommerce for ESPN.com. Mr. Vaughan is also the founder of Cheap Hosting Directory - a web hosting review site. Mr. Vaughan holds degrees from both the Indiana University and Purdue University. He has also received a Master of Business Administration degree from the Owen School at Vanderbilt University. Cheap Hosting Directory is a part of network of web hosting portals.

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