The battle between Facebook and Google for your attention has taken another step forward with the release of Google ‘Social Search’. Facebook’s internal search is (and always has been) abysmal so Google doesn’t really have much competition but don’t count out Microsoft’s involvement. With their investment in Facebook and push to make Bing.com the search engine of choice I wonder if their relatively new relationship will move from first to second base. Social search was initially announced last October; this informational video provides a quick overview:
This is interesting but is missing real details. The following video provides them:
Google’s objective is to provide search results that are as near as possible to what you are actually looking for. If their search results don’t do that they know you are likely to look elsewhere (bing?) for the information. I value the recommendation of a friend over a stranger (or a search engine) and Google Social Search is the first attempt to combine both.
I think the need for a Gmail account and Google profile is a hurdle – it fails my ‘mum’ (mom) test; if a technology can’t be used by my mum then the chance of it’s success is reduced. Personally however I think this is a step in the right direction and is an interesting move towards a more social world and useful search results.
