Social search continues to be in the limelight, being targeted by major search giants. It all has a reason: social recommendations, which is now "a movement" nobody dares to overlook, particularly due to highest level of confidence we now place in online WOM, or the advices, answers we hear from peers, friends and simply online strangers.
According to the today's news bulletin (The Telegraph): Google has begun indexing status updates from Facebook Pages and including them in its real-time search results.
It should be good news for small and medium businesses opening their Facebook pages in search for new online interactions and further insights collection, since Facebook Fan Pages are meant: “for organisations, businesses, celebrities, and bands to broadcast great information to fans in an official, public manner” (basically - genuine marketing tools).
Integration of social search started similar to a "Gold rush" by the end of last year, when Google and Bingo have included Twitter streams. Last week Google announced indexing MySpace status updates and today is for the first time when Google announced Facebook search integration - although only for Fan pages and not for user's status updates (as compared to Microsoft's Bingo).
This integration however, means future searchability for 3 million Fan Pages with an audience of 5.3 billion fans!
Twitter popularity and resistance in front of political censorship (the case of Iran protests, Facebook ban in China and Vietnam, etc) started to question the search engines'ability to serve the latest updates on real-time stories and events.
Many have discovered the reliability of social recommendations searched on Twitter over the usual searches.
Today Google and Microsoft’s Bing are partnering with Twitter, Facebook and MySpace, in order to make their searches more relevant.
The question is: since we already trust Word-of-mouth more than any meadia source when it comes to brands' reliablity - will social search become the main tool to deliver the answers we're looking for?
If so, will that mean - for instance - an advancement of commercial Flogs ahead of genuine Blogs?
Curious to hear,
Yours,
Digital Lunch
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2 comments:
No wonder Google has such an interest in social media sites, the reason is their increasing popularity. On the other hand, social recommendations could stimulate further partnerships among SNS and search engines.
Alison, US
btw, I've just recommended your site among my pals at the Uni, they think you're doing a great job. Guess that's social recommendation,too - right? Best of luck!
Hi, Alison,
Thank you for your comment, gad to hear you find the posts useful. Our main aim is to create relevant content.
Best of luck in your studies,
Cheers,
Digital Lunch Team
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