Google Social Search Launching Globally Next Week. Facebook Unhappy.

Google Social Search feature is launching globally next week, Google said on their official social search blog today. Google first introduced the social search feature in 2009. Social  search combines search results delivered by Google search algorithms and combines them with the social data publicly available. By adding personalization, Google will be able to display search results (links) favorited by your friends.



Google defines your social circle very loosely. Currently in includes the people in your Gmail contact list, Gtalk, people you follow on Google Buzz, Google reader in addition to publicly available data from social networks like Twitter & Facebook. Of course this is going to make Facebook unhappy because Google will be able to use Facebook's public data without obtaining formal permission from them. The feature created lot of controversy recently as Facebook admitted having hired a PR company to push out negative stories about social features and serious privacy concerns it may raise. So far, Google hasn't commented officially. However with today's post, they are making it official.

Google social search will give more priority to content published by people in your social circle and clearly indicate it on the search results page along with mention of your friends name & photograph. It's interesting to note that Google cleverly omitted Facebook's name from their blog post, while clearly mentioning Twitter. The feature will be rolled out in 19 languages all over the world starting next week. Following video shows a demo of social search feature -



Via: Google Social Search Blog