Social search 251
Gmail, to ask and answer their questions. The company Cofacio released a beta platform in August 2009 in the UK
which marks a return to the open, broadcast method of social search for the Twitter/Facebook generation.
In October 2009, Google rolled out its "Social Search" feature; after a time in beta, the feature was expanded to
multiple languages in May 2011. However, after a search deal with Twitter ended without renewal, Google began to
retool its Social Search. In January 2012, Google released "Search plus Your World", a further development of
Social Search. The feature, which is integrated into Google's regular search as an opt-out feature, pulls references to
results from Google+ profiles. The company was subsequently criticized by Twitter for the perceived potential
impact of "Search plus Your World" upon web publishers, describing the feature's release to the public as a "bad day
for the web", while Google replied that Twitter refused to allow deep search crawling by Google of Twitter's
content[8].Benefits
To date social search engines have not demonstrated measurably improved search results over algorithmic search
engines. However, there are potential benefits deriving from the human input qualities of social search.- Reduced impact of link spam by relying less on link structure of web pages.
- • Increased relevance because each result has been selected by users.
- • Leverage a network of trusted individuals by providing an indication of whether they thought a particular result
was good or bad. - • The introduction of 'human judgement' suggests that each web page has been viewed and endorsed by one or
more people, and they have concluded it is relevant and worthy of being shared with others using human
techniques that go beyond the computer's current ability to analyze a web page. - Web pages are considered to be relevant from the reader's perspective, rather than the author who desires their
content to be viewed, or the web master as they create links. - • More current results. Because a social search engine is constantly getting feedback it is potentially able to display
results that are more current or in context with changing information.
Concerns
- • Risk of spam. Because users can directly add results to a social search engine there is a risk that some users could
insert search spam directly into the search engine. Elimination or prevention of this spam would require the ability
to detect the validity of a user's' contribution, such as whether it agrees with other trusted users. - "The Long Tail" of search is a concept that there are so many unique searches conducted that most searches,
while valid, are performed very infrequently. A search engine that relied on users filling in all the searches would
be at a disadvantage to one that used machines to crawl and index the entire web.
References
[ 1 ]What's the Big Deal With Social Search? (http:/ / searchenginewatch. com/ showPage. html?page=3623153), SearchEngineWatch, Aug 15,
2006
[ 2 ]Chi, Ed H. Information Seeking Can Be Social, Computer, vol. 42, no. 3, pp. 42-46, Mar. 2009, doi:10.1109/MC.2009.87 (http:/ / www2.
computer. org/ portal/ web/ csdl/ doi/ 10. 1109/ MC. 2009. 87)
[ 3 ]A Taxonomy of Social Search Approaches (http:/ / blog. delver. com/ index. php/ 2008/ 07/ 31/ taxonomy-of-social-search-approaches/ ),
Delver company blog, Jul 31, 2008
[ 4 ]Google’s Marissa Mayer: Social search is the future (http:/ / venturebeat. com/ 2008/ 01/ 31/
googles-marissa-mayer-social-search-is-the-future), VentureBeat, Jan 31, 2008
[ 5 ]New Sites Make It Easier To Spy on Your Friends (http:/ / online. wsj. com/ public/ article/ SB121063460767286631. html), Wall Street
Journal, May 13. 2008
[ 6 ]Social Search Guide: 40+ Social Search Engines (http:/ / mashable. com/ 2007/ 08/ 27/ social-search/ ), Mashable, Aug 27. 2007
[ 7 ]Is This The Future Of Search? (http:/ / http://www. techcrunch. com/ 2008/ 07/ 16/ is-this-the-future-of-search/ ), TechCrunch, July 16, 2008