San Francisco — In a surprise announcement at Wednesday’s Web 2.0 Conference in San Francisco, Marissa Mayer, Google’s VP of Search Products and User Experience, revealed that users of Google’s search engine will soon be able to display content created by friends in search results lists through an upcoming Google product called “Social Search”.
Currently, the feature is in the “Google Labs” hatchery and will require a Google account and a Google Profile to work. Those who opt in will find content created by people from their own social graph included at the bottom of Google’s search results. To utilize the new functionality, users must be signed into Google, and must inform Google which profiles on the various social networks belong to them.
For example, a search for “New Zealand,” will still display results that are relevant globally, but the bottom of the page might display pictures from your cousin’s trip to New Zealand two years ago.
Social Search, said Mayer, recognizes a fundamental need for real-time information and demonstrates Google’s commitment to innovating in search. “We have been thinking about social networks for a long time,” said Mayer, without any hint that the meteoric rise of social networks might be a source of concern at Google.
The interaction amongst different social media will prove fascinating and could be a clever play to grab the motivation this area is getting right now. In such way if any person in any of your networks makes any comment about your search query you will get their comments added to the results. Interesting idea – this really could improve the trust levels for search results if a friend is giving a recommendation to what you are looking for.
“This is great from a precision and relevance standpoint,” said Mayer.
The existence of Google’s Social Search service appears to validate claims made earlier on Wednesday afternoon at the Web 2.0 Summit by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. “There is a very fundamental shift going on from the information Web to the social Web,” she said.
Google clearly wants to be a part of that shift.
Mayer also confirmed an announcement made earlier in the afternoon that Google had reached a deal with Twitter to include tweets in its search index as a way to improve access to real-time information.
In order for Social Search to work, users much have a Google Account, a Google Profile, and friends listed as Google Contacts.