With the release of Microsoft’s new Bing search engine and the Yahoo/Microsoft deal, its no surprise that Google is starting to feel a little heat. This can only be a good thing; nothing like a bit of good healthy solid competition.

The result? The next version of Google 2.0, as reported by Mashable.

It is evident that Search is the foundation of all of Google’s online strategy, and in order to stay profitable it has to stay on top. And now Google has generously allowed the general public to preview the development build of its dominating search engine.

While searching for me, there are no immediate differences in the results. I did, however, notice that the previous version of Google could not find my facebook profile (rather strange, I think), where as the new version had listed me under an expandable list of results from Facebook.

Regardless, it is an exciting (and often scary) period to be involved in the development of the internet as we know it. Be sure to hop over to http://www2.sandbox.google.com/ and give it a whirl!