October 26, 2009, 9:39 PM — Google is pouring personalized social data into search results with its new Google Social Search, launching in experimental mode today. Google Social Search, announced at last week's Web 2.0 Summit, adds content from your friends right into your Google searches.
Unlike Microsoft's Bing-based Twitter search, Google's Social Search uses your own lists of contacts from various services to build up a network, then features content specifically from the people whom you know. And, while it does include Twitter, it also includes FriendFeed, shared Google Reader stories, and other social content from around the Web.
Getting to Google Social Search
Google Social Search is currently considered part of Google Labs, so it's not enabled by default. To try it out, just visit Google's Experimental Labs page and click the button to "join the experiment."
(Note: Google Social Search is launching on Monday, so it may or may not be available to all users immediately. If you don't see the option on that page, try back again in a few hours.)
Once you've joined, you'll immediately start seeing social information at the bottom of your search result pages. You can also click on the "Show Options" text at the top left of the page -- or click on the "Results from people in your social circle" link at the bottom of the page -- to filter the results and see only the social information.
Using Google Social Search
To test the Social Search system, I tried searching for the term "Apple." Google's first social result was a satirical story -- "Apple Sues God, Says Fruit Too Similar to Logo" -- pulled from my Google Reader RSS subscriptions.
Below that were links to blogs a couple of my colleagues had posted regarding Apple; Google cross-referenced them from e-mail addresses in my Gmail contacts list and uncovered their stories. There was even an Apple-related tweet sent by one of my Twitter friends -- PC World's Robert Strohmeyer -- grouped together with an Apple tip he had posted on his personal site and an option to see more of his related content.
Understanding Google Social Search
Follow JR on Google+
