Google’s New Social Search: Easier Than Ever to Know Who Your Friends Really Are!
Google has thought of a new service called Social Search that produces search results rich with personalized social content from your friends. It was launched yesterday in an experimental mode. How it manages to do that is by using your contact lists on various sites like Google profile page, Google chat, blogs, Twitter, Friend Feed and customizing your results to the people you know.
YouTube - Watch Google Social Search
I can’t say I’m too thrilled with the idea. While we probably would find it handy when we are being snoops ourselves (and we all have been there sometime), I doubt most of us would be too happy to have our every online move put on a parade a la our own version of an intrusive reality show. I understand that when we put some info out there into the world, on some level we should be prepared for this invasion of privacy because you have created the content publicly. But are you ready for this kind of concentrated, targeted information so ready at hand for any casual acquaintance that you’ve forgotten to knock from your forward list? I’m not talking just your name, place of work etc. I’m talking your political views, religious beliefs and your online review about a local restaurant, the works.
But if you are determined to try this brand new feature, at least in part to find out what you are up against when it is used against you, visit Google’s Experimental Labs page and click the button to “join the experiment.” Then after you do any search, use the “Show Options” box just under the search box at the top of the search results page. Then select the “Social” link along the left-side of the page. Upon entry, you will be privy to social information at the bottom of your search result pages. While you’re there, click on the “Results from people in your social circle” link at the bottom of the page to target the results to just the social data. For example, if you make a search on a topic that catches your fancy , you would immediately be subjected to information such as what your friends or acquaintances have said about that particular topic on other sites. It will also provide info about people whom your friends are associated with like say on a Twitter site. If this is not reason enough to stop accepting social invites from strangers on the net, I don’t know what is!
But Google does give you a way out of this scary little feature, you can always remove any mention of other services you don’t want looked into from your Google profile. And presently Google cannot access your Facebook friends or content, if you have not made it available outside of the site. Since social search is still in early stages of development, Google will probably iron out some annoying bugs soon. I hope they make a way of adding or deleting people from this service depending on our comfort zone. After all of us have different layers of trust with people in our current social circles…As they say “all friends are not made equal”.
For more info, check out the official Google Social Search features page, now live on the Google support site.
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