Google is back and back with a weapon, which can rip apart the logics. Google seems to be aimed at Google+ promotion as the most-wanted agenda. The same is now even reflecting in the search results of Google.
Now, if one makes a search query on Google, they will get related links, which have been occupied by sponsored posts earlier. These related links could be for brand pages or popular personalities related to the search queries.
If a Google user is logged on to their Google accounts, they will even get updates related to the activities related to their friends on Google+, again related to the specific search query.
This act of Google might just look fine to the search engine giant, but others are not taking it in good taste, especially Twitter.
Twitter, a microblogging service has lashed out at changes Google Inc unveiled for its search engine on Tuesday, describing the changes as “bad” for consumers and for Web publishers. The company emphasized that these changes would make it tougher for people to find the breaking news often shared by users of its service.
The company said in a statement, “As we’ve seen time and time again, news breaks first on Twitter; as a result, Twitter accounts and Tweets are often the most relevant (search) results.” the statement even noted the company stating, “We’re concerned that as a result of Google’s changes, finding this information will be much harder for everyone. We think that’s bad for people, publishers, news organizations and Twitter users.”
Twitter was even quick to criticize Google for this new feature, which makes search results more personalized. This thought shared by Twitter, will only help the antitrust case against Google to build on. Google is facing antitrust scrutiny for favoring its own services within its search results, so the link is there once again.
Additionally, this change will indulge users further to see more and more posts and photos from Google+.
One might say that it might ruin privacy yet again, but Google can just defend the move, saying that only the users logged into their Google accounts, will be able to get their circled friend’s posts and photos. Other than than, they only see popular posts and popular personalities.
However, it is hard to think that Twitter will proceed to the antitrust section, to shake Google off this step. This is because, Google had entered into an agreement with Twitter to offer a real-time feed of Twitter messages within its search results, which was entered in 2009 and expired in July.
Whatever may be the case, this new weapon is running wild on Google. Google describe the same in a blog post as follows:
Google Search has always been about finding the best results for you. Sometimes that means results from the public web, but sometimes it means your personal content or things shared with you by people you care about. These wonderful people and this rich personal content is currently missing from your search experience. Search is still limited to a universe of webpages created publicly, mostly by people you’ve never met. Today, we’re changing that by bringing your world, rich with people and information, into search.
Google, has only to note the benefits one can reap out of this new feature, which can be noted as follows:
Every day, there are hundreds of millions of searches for people. Sometimes, it’s hard to find the person you’re looking for. Once you do find him or her, there’s no quick way for you to actually interact. Starting today, you’ll have meaningful ways to connect with people instantly, right from the search results.
Now, typing just the first few letters of your friend’s name brings up a personalized profile prediction in autocomplete. Selecting a predicted profile takes you to a results page for your friend, which includes information from their Google+ profile and relevant web results that may be related to them. And you can have this personal experience instantaneously, thanks to Google Instant. So when I search for [ben smith], I now find my dear friend Ben every time, instead of the hundreds of other Ben Smiths out there (no offense to all of them!).