Google Social Search Goes Live, Adds New Features, by Matt McGee, Search Engine Land (Jan 27)
Google's rollout of Social Search will surely boost the idea of searching postings and other content done by contacts. Having a GMail account would be a first step for building the circle.
Danny Sullivan described it in detail in October - Google Social Search Launches, Gives Results From Your Trusted “Social Circle”
Google figures out the social circle from Google chat buddies and contacts, links listed on your Google profile, and publically known connections. The social search will also pick up posts from Google Reader subscriptions.
Results can include pictures that contacts have published publicly to the web on photo-sharing sites like Picasa Web Albums and Flickr.
Google has a video - http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/search-is-getting-more-social.html - to show you how to do it.
Also - Google Expands Social Search Test By Juan Carlos Perez, IDG News Service via PC World (Jan 27)
Why does it matter? "Incorporating social-networking content into its search index is both a necessary complement to its search results and a competitive move for Google, said industry analyst Greg Sterling from Sterling Market Intelligence.
Content from sites like Twitter has proven increasingly valuable for identifying trends and for following breaking news events. Google is aware that Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and other social networks are nabbing a bigger portion of the time people spend online."
Posted by Gwen at January 28, 2010 12:48 AM