Skip to main content

Google Rolls Out Controversial Social Search Feature

Google announced on its official blog that it is rolling out controversial Social Search feature in over next few days.

This experimental feature which is launched in 2009 combines regular Google search results with publicly available data created by your friends’ social network activities.

 

image

 

For example, if you’re looking for information about low-light photography and your friend has written a blog post about it, that post may show up higher in your results with a clear annotation and picture of your friend.

Social Search can help you find pages your friends have created, and it can also help you find links your contacts have shared on Twitter and other sites. If someone you’re connected to has publicly shared a link, Google may show that link in your results with a clear annotation.

From the official blog post,

So how does this all work? Social search results are only visible to you and only appear when you choose to log in to your Google Account. If you’re signed in, Google makes a best guess about whose public content you may want to see in your results, including people from your Google chat buddy list, your Google Contacts, the people you're following in Google Reader and Buzz, and the networks you’ve linked from your Google profile or Google Account. For public networks like Twitter, Google finds your friends and sees who they’re publicly connected to as well.

This feature was recently the subject of controversy, as Facebook hired a PR company to push negative stories about Social Search in the press. Facebook claims that Google’s practices raise “serious privacy concerns”, and it’s unhappy with the fact that Google can use Facebook data for its service without Facebook’s permission.

To learn more about Social Search, watch this video -

 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Your Google Apps Account is Changing

Google is about to make more of its services available to organizations with Google Apps accounts. This is an early adopter phase, and all domains may not get this option to move to the new infrastructure. What this means for you: In addition to the core suite of messaging and collaboration applications, Google Apps users may now access many more Google services with their Google Apps accounts.     Those who are eligible for this early adoption, Google Apps administrator will be presented with the above banner to start with the migration. In your organization, you can transition selected pilot users and admins, or you can start the transition now for all your users. The transition for pilot users can be reverted if necessary. After successful transition, your users will now be able to use other Google popular products like AdSense, AdWords, Alerts, Analytics, Android, Blogger, Finance, Google Desktop, News, Orkut, Reader, Voice, YouTube (Full list here ). Als...
Post a Comment
Read more

How to Turn Your Android Phone into a Fully-Automated Superphone

What if your phone automatically went silent when you step into the movie theatre? Texted your significant other when you finished your long commute? Or automatically turned down the volume when a particularly loud friend called? It can; here's how. Android application Tasker gives you total rules-based automation for your Android phone. It's not free, but it offers a free 14-day trial download. Tasker can do nearly anything on your phone. It's mostly limited by your imagination. Here are some up-front ideas about neat automations that come to mind: • Set preferences for each application: Give the Kindle app a longer screen time-out. Make Maps or Foursquare automatically turn on GPS, and have a file browser launch when you trade out SD cards. Have your music and other audio apps lower the volume to 50 percent when you plug in headphones, so you never get a way-too-loud moment. • Time of day automation: Make your phone go into airplane mode overnight, but re-conne...
Post a Comment
Read more

Google Wallet: The Future Innovative Mobile Payments

Earlier few months, Google unveiled future innovative way of payment technology – Google Wallet. Today, Google released its first version of the Android app with Sprint Nexus S 4G phones through an over the air update. Google Wallet is an app that lets you pay for things using your phone, either by tying your credit card or gift or pre-paid cards. It works using an near field communication (NFC) embedded chip and there is no swiping required.   According to Techcrunch , Google Wallet will not work everywhere your credit card will. It won’t work everywhere there’s an NFC-friendly card reader, either. Wallet requires an NFC reader based on a new-ish specification, and only a select bunch of retailers have gotten around to updating. The post also had some great review and walkthrough in real life. This app is now available to Samsung Nexus S owners on Sprint, through PayPass sensors at Radio Shack, Foot Locker, Peet’s Coffee & Tea, Sunoco, CVS/pharmacy, etc. retailers. ...
Post a Comment
Read more