Comments on: Social Search Like Never Before in 2009

By: Social Bookmarking and the New Marketing | Rise to the Top Blog

Social Bookmarking and the New Marketing | Rise to the Top Blog — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 19:38:57 +0000

[...] to come and interact on a common platform that the present day social networking sites offer. Click here to learn more about the importance of social [...]

By: How Social Media And SEO Are Evolving | Rise to the Top Blog

How Social Media And SEO Are Evolving | Rise to the Top Blog — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 04:43:32 +0000

[...] has provided its users with unlimited opportunity to decide the relevancy of content. With social media the end user is now able to make an impact on the content of a page by voting for content [...]

By: Search Marketing Outlook 2009 | Rise to the Top Blog

Search Marketing Outlook 2009 | Rise to the Top Blog — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 06:47:52 +0000

[...] Social media and business networking continues to rise in popularity with no signs of slowing down. Social networking sites like FaceBook, Twitter and LinkedIn provide a fun and convenient way of keeping in touch with friends, business associates and even clients. [...]

By: Brynn Evans

Brynn Evans — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 23:28:07 +0000

This is a good review of the pros and cons of social search as it exists today. I have only two comments:

1) In my experience, personalizing search based on the user’s personal social network is only one of many definitions of ’social search’ floating around these days. I believe it will be the more powerful version of ’social search’, but I see the term also used to describe people finder systems, social recommender systems, and human-written search entries (Mahalo). Each of those has a very different flavor from the others.

2) I also believe that the key to successful social search will be in its implementation, which will be tricky to execute. There are a number of considerations that we as researchers (me and others) and developers (the readers of this blog?) need to take into account: when and where will social search be most effective? which scenarios will make social search a natural ‘given’, and which ones should be spared? when is implicit vs. explicit social data better? Most importantly, in what specific ways do social inputs/metadata aid a search–only after failed search attempts, before embarking full blown exploratory queries, never for certain types of questions, etc?

By: January 2009 Rise To The Top Wrapup | Rise to the Top Blog

January 2009 Rise To The Top Wrapup | Rise to the Top Blog — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 19:06:49 +0000

[...] Social search and marketing is becoming a bigger buzzword with every month that passes right now. The impact of social marketing will begin to become more evident as 2009 progresses. [...]

By: Mia

Mia — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 05:13:55 +0000

Nice post, Google came with ‘personalized search’ in a way to defend social search. How come Ms.Mayer can said “search hasn’t shown much promise” it shows her ignorance in this field! hari you’re right – social search’s future looks rosy….

By: Hari

Hari — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 10:59:57 +0000

@Warren:
Baynote was mentioned in the list of social search engines purely as an example. There was no intention to bracket it with any others or to ascribe any particular “gaming” methodology. Anyway thanks for the clarification and the link. It’s really helpful!

By: Grette

Grette — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 03:52:51 +0000

Yes, you’re right Hari. Nowadays social search is gathering great momentum over algo-based search. Google has also shown its leniency towards social search, as Marissa Mayer, Google’s leading VP in search, said social search hasn’t shown much promise, but if it does, Google would be in a good position to incorporate it in future.

By: Warren Colbert

Warren Colbert — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 18:31:31 +0000

Han,
Good write up, your pro’s of social search are spot on. I do think its important to note the different types of Social Search. You mentioned some of the cons of social search and they are really only relevant when looking at the search engines like mahalo and other social search engines that allow explicit user feedback to drive search results.

You mentioned Baynote in the list of search engines, and I wanted to clarify that we do not drive our results with explicit user feedback like tagging or rating, and therefore Baynote Social Search is not susceptible to the types of gaming you mentioned. Our Social Search approach is fully automated and derives its social intelligence by watching observing how users interact with content on a given site. You can check out our technology page for a deeper insight on our approach. http://www.baynote.com/technology/input/