Content from Google Social Search more relevant to us, really?

[dusky]

My eyes nearly dropped!

According to Google friends recent newsletter:

Social Search is based on the idea that content from your friends and social contacts is often more relevant to you than content from strangers

[google.com...]

"is often more relevant" IS NOT true in my case, otherwise I'd rarely use a search engine!

If talking about shooting oneself in the foot, they surely did this time if everyone stops using search engines and just read their friends walls, tweets, blogs, chat rooms etc instead.

[edited by: tedster at 6:17 pm (utc) on Feb 28, 2010]
[edit reason] link added for attribution [/edit]

[tedster]

I know I don't want content from my friends and contact to be forced into search results - but I guess I'm not the average user. So-called "social" content is quite diverse, and there is no reason to assume that I want it all pooled together. If I wonder what a contact has been Tweeting, I'll go to Twitter. Their Facebook Wall has a whole different quality and if I want that, then I'll go to Facebook. And if I really care about their opinion, then I'll use email or IM or phone. Or maybe even visit in person - very retro, I know.

This whole social business is a case where Google didn't really "get it" early on. Now, as a late and awkward arrival to the party, they're just talking louder than everyone else. In my circles we have names for that kind of party guest ;)

[dusky]

Thanks Ted for including the link to Google as a reference, was in a daze after that email.

They probably thought let's have a backdoor through their search engine to everyone and his/her friends, so instead of everyone logging in to check out each social network site, they can just search for joe bloggs and they get whatever is new from all networks. Sounds plausible (or plausable) I guess, and tapping into some direct traffic to those networks and channeling it as a medium is not a bad idea to stick some adwords while at it. However, the problem IMO is the cluttering of SERPs and the annoyance that will cause (if and when more and more of it is in the normal SERPs), let's face it, they seem to ignore the fact that most people use a search engine to look up serious authoritative information, buy goods and services, educate and entertain themselves and learn few things etc. You might say, just don't use the Social Search, but the fear is the latter will spill over to normal SERPs big time, and I can see them pushing it even harder if it proves less popular than they anticipated.

Yes they need to follow the trend and lifestyle, and yes they have to move with the times, but to be that scared to loose direct incoming traffic to SNs and do this as a contingency plan is not the best way, they should just buy one of them out, promote it through the normal search and be done with it, they will get a good market share and probably even match the largest of them, they did with Yutube and other divisions.

[dusky]

And now pushing myspace [webmasterworld.com...]