Social search
Bing becoming more “social” with their search results
With the rapport with Facebook, Microsoft will be producing results from your friend’s circle; ie, more “Likes” in their search results. It is true that we prefer comments, advises from our buddies and also are likely to believe what they say rather what others say. With that assumption and also considering some favourable research results about “Friend effect” Bing announced on their blog “We are bringing the collective IQ of the Web together with the opinions of the people you trust the most, to bring the “Friend effect” to search”. Starting today users will get personalized search results based on the opinions of their friends by simply signing into Facebook.
This new feature of Bing will make it easier for you to view what your friends “like” across the web. This feature is quite interesting since we always wish to get advice/opinions before buying or taking a decision. But one very important fact is that you and your friends should make a big list of things of what you like so as to provide apt results for your friends also. In case, if none of your friends haven’t commented about the particular thing you are searching for, then Input from the collective IQ can enable search to become a discovery tool, allowing you to benefit from the connections, inferences and “likes” of it. Bing shows also popular content, including trendy topics, articles and Facebook fan pages, from sites across the web. The above mentioned are a few about this new “social” feature of Bing.There are lot more, visit http://binged.it/kJ6X7T
Google Unveils +1, a new social tool
Challenging its greatest rival, Google has gone one step ahead introducing a social search button +1. Having some similarity with Facebook’s “Likes” this new feature will allow people to personally endorse or promote search results and web pages. This proves that Google has been undertaking various steps to stay on par with Facebook. The +1 button will appear next to Google search results provided only once the users are logged in.
Once you click on the +1 button it indicates that you have shared your link publicly to your social network. In the same way when you do Google search, and if any of your friends have shared some results it will list right below the search results. You can use your profile to see all of your +1’s in one place, and delete those you no longer want to recommend.
Google says that search becomes relevant by utilizing this feature. “The beauty of +1’s is their relevance—you get the right recommendations (because they come from people who matter to you), at the right time (when you are actually looking for information about that topic) and in the right format (your search results), Google posted on their blog.
Google updates “Google Social Search”
Google updates “Google Social Search” which they had introduced in 2009 with some advanced features to offer its users with the most relevant information which is also personalized according to the users’ interest and relationship. ‘Google social search”, finds relevant public content from your friends and contacts and highlights it for you at the (bottom in the past but now at the top ) of your search results. With this new updating, Google facilitate you to get even more information from the people related to you, from their YouTube , Flickr, Blogs or website and shows at the top of search results.
But keep in mind that you will only get social search results, when you log in to your Google account
There are mainly three important features which Google highlights:-
First, Social search results will now be combined all through your results based on their relevance. You will start getting results on top from co-workers, friends which they have created or shared. Google has quoted an example for this, it says that; If you are thinking about climbing Mt Kilimanjaro and your colleague Matt has written a blog post about his own experience, then that post will come up with a note and a picture. In the past, results were shown at the bottom
Second, unlike in the past where Google shows results for content that was created by people in your social circle, now they shows results what they have shared also (for eg retweets, exception Facebook Likes) ,. If someone connected to you has shared a link publicly, Google will show those results. Google cites an example on their blog. It says, if you’re looking for a video of President Obama on “The Daily Show” and your friend Nundu tweeted the video, that result might show up higher in your results and you’ll see a note with a picture of Nundu:
And finally, Google provides enough control over how you connect accounts and also makes the same more easy and convenient.Users are provided with two options to connect accounts publicly on your Google profile or privately in your Google Account and your social connections won’t be shown to the public on your Google Profile, but those connections could influence your search results.Also, if Google’s algorithm finds a public account that seems to be yours due to similarity in usernames they invite you to connect your accounts right on search results page in your Google accounts.
These updates have been rolled out in Google.com in English only and by next week only searchers could see it.