The social networking phenomenom is picking up speed with the big guns announcing new initiatives this month.
Google has released a new product Social Search. Once users with a Google Profile are logged onto the feature, Google will crawl through publicly available friends and contacts, and subsequent searches from social networks will be displayed at the bottom of the search page. In order to satisfy the critics' claims of privacy invasion, Google will only produce results based on data publicly available on the web - and inform the user as to the source of the information. As reported in the Telegraph, Google's official blog post says: "These social results will include relevant websites, blogs, status updates, and other publicly-available content from your online friends and contacts." Social Search aims to provide more relevant information to the user, personalise the experience, and on the whole, make information easier to find.
Not only has Google launched Social Search, but both Microsoft and Google have announced tie-ins with Twitter this month - further emphasising the significance of displaying relevant search results to gain the competitive edge. By adding a Twitter presence to their own search pages, both Bing and Google will include the results of 'Tweets' in virtually the same timeframe as they appear on Twitter's own pages.
Real-time search, according to an article on the BBC website is already well established: Microsoft and Google now join the likes of Crowdeye, OneRiot, FriendFeed and Collecta who are already populating real-time search.
Whilst Microsoft announced the Twitter deal and pointed the media to its new Twitter search page, according to Marissa Mayer (Google's vice president of search products and user experience), its version will be rolled out in the "coming months".
And the benefits? Visitors can access search results which are more relevant to them and get updates as they are happening. As Ms Meyer pointed out in the official Google blog:
"...the next time you search for something that can be aided by a real-time observation, say, snow conditions at your favourite ski resort, you'll find tweets from other users who are there and sharing the latest and greatest information."
But the media hype isn't all going Twitter's way. New data out this month suggests the British economy loses around £1.38 billion in lost productivity, as Morse (an IT services and technology company) suggests over 50% of British office workers access Twitter and Facebook on average, 40 minutes a week. This equates to one week over the course of a year. Reported both on the Telegraph and FT websites, of the 1,460 office workers sampled, 57% of respondents said they used social networking sites during the working day for personal use.
Phillip Wicks, a consultant at Morse says: "The popularity of social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook has grown considerably over the past couple of years. However, with it has come the temptation to visit such sites during office hours. When it comes to an office environment the use of these sites is clearly becoming a productivity black hole."
The majority of those sampled said their companies were not giving them clear guidance on using social networking sites - leaving businesses exposed either from being able to protect their brand or enabling them to put adequate IT security measures in place.
privacy and cookies policy