What if every Google search you make – for details on breaking news stories, movie reviews, products, etc. – turned up listings from people in your own social network? Instead of relying solely on strangers for information or opinions, you could also rely on people you know personally or with whom you have developed a virtual relationship with via various social networking sites.
In a surprise announcement by Google at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, this very idea will soon be explored in Google Labs. Based on feedback from users, Google may integrate the concept of “Social Search†into its regular search engine results.
If implemented, your use of Google Social Search would require that you have a:
• Google account
• Google profile
• List of friends as Google contacts
Google's VP of search products and user experience Marissa Mayer made the announcement, which incidentally included confirmation that Google has also reached an agreement with Twitter and will integrate tweets into its search results.
Whether Social Search is ultimately implemented into regular Google results or not, CyberMark International will closely monitor the increasing integration of social media into search engine listings so as to ensure the best in SEO for our clients.
You can expect to see the experiment with Social Search in Google Labs to begin sometime in the next few weeks.
