A social search engine

Written by Narmad

Searching relevant information on the web from my notebook sometimes becomes tricky. By nature, powerful search engines always return heaps of information in my browser. How about a search engine that filters web content from people whom you know socially. Here comes a search feature called Google Social Search, which can redefine the way we use search engines. Let's find out how.

Google Social Search is a new experiment from Google to help you find and locate publicly available web content from your social circle quickly and easily. With the inception of Web 2.0 technology, there are numerous social networking applications where people post blogs, tweets, status updates and images. Most of the time you choose to make your content public so that everyone can view and send feedback to you.

You have a Twitter account where you follow 100 people every day! You may also have a Facebook account where you have different contacts who may not feature in the ‘Followers’ list of your Twitter account. You can also have a Flickr account with a different set of contacts. These online social networking services create a network of your different connections, which Google calls your 'social circle'.

For Example, I follow Russell in Twitter and Peter is in my Facebook contact list. Now both Russell and Peter have separate sets of social networks in their social networking applications. These separate networks make your extended social circle. Google Social Search brings together pieces of your fragmented social circle together.



How does Google Social Search work?

There are three different ways in which Google traces your social circle.

The first way is through your Google profile. When you create a Google profile, you can share your personal information on the web including the information listed in your online social services  such as Facebook, Twitter, Facebook, Blogger, and Picassa. For example, you can add the link of your Twitter account, Picasa album or FriendFeed account in your Google profile.

However, it is up to user to create a Google Profile. You have also an option to add or remove any information from your Google profile. Once you have created your Google profile and added links of your various online social services, you have signaled Google that you are comfortable with the world knowing the information in your profile including the information you have mentioned in the social networking services you have added in your profile.


Based on the information in your profile, Google will start building a broader social circle, which they term as ‘social graph’.

For example, Google will scan your public Twitter page and add all your 100 ‘Following’ in your social circle. If you are following your friend in Twitter, who is in turn following 10 different people, Google will add those 10 people in your extended social circle.

Here's the second way in which Google adds to your social circle. If you have 10 chat buddies, Google will add them to your ‘social graph’. Once it is done, you will be able view their public information easily in the search results.

The third way is that if you subscribe to a blog in Google Reader, Google retrieves posts from that blog and pours it into your social search results.

Once your social circle is built, Google uses the regular web index data and merges it with your social information. Once it is done it will display public content from your social circle at the bottom of the search results.



Google advocates that as a user you will have all the control over your social search results and social connections. You can always add or delete social networking links from your Google profile. You can also add or block your Google chat contacts.

This way Google builds your social circle and finds useful public information from your network of contacts to show in the search results.

Google Social Search is still inside Google Labs. Google has welcomed feedback from users all over the world. I am sure this new search option will make my search more social on my notebook.

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