Google's Social Search

Image via CrunchBaseThat was rather fast. Tighten your seat belts. This drama is just getting started.

Watch Out For Steve Ballmer

Mashable: Unfazed by Facebook, Google Rolls Out Social Search Globally: Launched in October 2009, Social Search is a feature that combines regular search results with publicly available data created by your friends’ social media activities. ...... Your “friends” are quite loosely defined and include people in your Google Talk friends list, your Google Contacts, people you’re following on Buzz and Google Reader and other networks you’ve linked from your Google profile or Google Account. Google can also find your friends on public networks such as Twitter and Facebook and gather the data from their public connections as well.

Google probably wants more people to use Facebook like I do. My privacy settings on Facebook are for "Everyone." Anyone can drop by and see all my pictures. I have uploaded more than 10,000 pictures of New York City on Facebook.



A friend was on the phone the other day. He said he saw one of my tweets in his Google search results. He was like, wow, man, you have arrived. I did not feel the need to educate him.

Related articles

• Unfazed by Facebook, Google Rolls Out Social Search Globally (mashable.com)
• Google's Social Search : (mobilegameroids.wordpress.com)
• Google Launching Social Search In 19 New Languages (searchengineland.com)
• Google Takes Social Search Global, +1 Coming Soon (readwriteweb.com)
• Google's Social Search Finally Going Global (paidcontent.org)
• Google Social Search Goes Global, But How Social Is It Really? (webpronews.com)
• Google rolls out Social Search globally (thenextweb.com)
• Why Bing Could Beat Google in Social Search (readwriteweb.com) social search could be the thing of the future. ..... Google was the first of the big search engines to introduce the idea of social search, bringing social context to search results back in October 2009 and again updating the feature in February 2011. So far, though, Google's search results have relied primarily on Twitter data and then secondarily on sources like personal blogging platforms. It has been missing one major element however: Facebook. ..... Google and Facebook notoriously just don't get along ...... Just yesterday Bing, Microsoft's top-tier and second place search engine, tied its search results to Facebook's massive social graph. ...... Microsoft has plans to bring in social signals from a host of other sites, such as Twitter, Yelp and more.
• Microsoft And Facebook Scramble To Stay Ahead Of Google's Social Search (MSFT) (businessinsider.com)

Social Concentric Circles

1. Self
2. Family
3. Close friends, close relatives
4. Close colleagues
5. "Friends"/Acquaintances/Distant Relatives/Corporate Team Members In Large Organizations
6. Customers/Voters
7. Fans
8. Humanity

I drew this diagram years back perhaps early in 2005 right before I moved to NYC. I had it published at a few blogs of mine. But then I had two Google accounts. At one point Google suggested I merge my two AdSense accounts. I said okay. Next thing you know all my blogs associated with one account simply disappeared. That included a book I was working on. And there is not a number you can call. Google simply does not believe in customer service. All its stuff is automated, which works fine more than 99% of the time. But I still lost a lot of material.

I had the diagram saved on a desktop. But that computer died a few months back. Kids, don't drink tequila. I mean, get anti-virus.

So I just went ahead and redrew it. This is just one of many possible social concentric cirlces. There are people who live alternate lifestyles. There are people to whom some of the outer circles mean much more than some of the inner circles. Several circles might simply be absent for many people.

The thing is the volatility increases as you go to the outer circles.

The dark blue zone is the enemy zone. When you smoke, you are your own enemy. Friends can turn on you. There might be a Judas at the table. Customers might desert you. Fans might snatch your hair.

In a big city like New York, you are likely to end up with more circles. That is where the people being not nice talk comes from. These are people in outer circles you meet - asteroids - that you just don't meet in small towns.

Related articles

• Daemonisation of Google in the Press Orchestrated by Microsoft Lobbyists (Burson-Marsteller and John Mercurio Exposed) (techrights.org)
• How Invasive is Google Social Circles, Anyway? (pcworld.com)
• Plus One: Google's Latest Move Towards Social (And Relevancy!) (wpromote.com)
• Google Circles: a new social network (just not yet) (malcolmcoles.co.uk)
• Wired: Facebook's Stealth Attack on Google Exposes Its Own Privacy Problem (boxofmeat.net)
• A Sharing Site Called Circles? Hey, Google, It's Been Done (pcworld.com)
• Facebook Seeks to Downplay Campaign Against Google (bits.blogs.nytimes.com)
• What is Google Circle ? A Google Social Network Initiative? (techmadly.com)
• Examining Facebook's "Smear Campaign" Concerns About Google Social Circles (searchengineland.com)
• Unfazed by Facebook, Google Rolls Out Social Search Globally (fakeiitian.com)
• Facebook, Burson discuss role in Google Circle dispute (usatoday.com)
• Google Social Search Goes Global, But How Social Is It Really? (webpronews.com)
• Is YouTube, Google Account Merging Another Step Towards Social Platform? (searchenginewatch.com)
• Unfazed by Facebook, Google Rolls Out Social Search Globally (mashable.com)
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