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.

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

Facebook Could Do Well In Search

Image via CrunchBaseSearch is the core of what Google does. Search is where Google makes almost all its money. Google gives away Android for free because, well, it will make money off of search. And I don't doubt Google will keep innovating. When blogs first burst onto the scene, and Google search results were being seriously skewed in favor of blog posts, Google tweaked its algorithms. Google will similarly respond to the content farms and the SEOed to the hilt sites.