With new Social Search, Google aims to be busybody-in-chief
To the delight of social media stalkers (and the dismay of digital hermits and job applicants), this week Google launched a new, experimental search option that can crawl through your vast online social network to help you find content from friends and contacts. Google Social Search is explained on the official Google blog (and in the video below):
A lot of people write about New York, so if I do a search for [new york] on Google, my best friend's New York blog probably isn't going to show up on the first page of my results. Probably what I'll find are some well-known and official sites…With Social Search, Google finds relevant public content from your friends and contacts and highlights it for you at the bottom of your search results.
To find personal content, Google looks first to your Google Profile, where you can add information about yourself and indicate to which networks you belong, from Twitter to Picasa. It also—at your discretion—will delve into your Gmail contacts and the blogs you follow on Google Reader.
Helpful, yes. But privacy issues have already been raised. Google’s Matt Cutts, in an introductory video, stresses that it’s your choice as to whether or not your content is crawled and surfaced. He also attempts to cut the privacy argument off at the pass:
“Once you’ve created a Google Profile and added links to your various online social services, you’ve signaled a very clear choice that you’re comfortable with the world knowing that information, including that you’re part of the other social networks you listed.”
Thoughts? Is Google simply providing a useful extra search tool, or does the new feature skirt too close to home? (For safe surfing tips, be sure to check out our Guide to Online Security.)
I'm now participating in the experiment at Google Labs to check out the social search's functionality for myself. If you're interested (you'll need a Google/Gmail account), sign up here. —Nick K. Mandle
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