Social Search Goes Mainstream

I knew this one was coming, especially with all the press on real-time search going around.

Bing and Microsoft have been in the news lately regarding deals that in effect add social search results to mainstream search. Bing has a beta setup, and Google just launched Social Search – an experimental Google Labs product.

It should be noted that Yahoo! has already integrated social with their search results. Once a search is performed, users have the option to view search results from a variety of social networks and authority websites (see below image).

Usability

• Google’s experimental social integration has to be activated in Google Labs before it can be used as a search option.
• Bing’s social integration is only one click away from the homepage and does not require activation; users will have easier access to this feature than in Google.
• Yahoo!’s integration is the most usable; options to view results from social networks are displayed immediately after a search is performed.

Functionality

Google Social Search

From the mouth of the Goog:

The way we do it is by building a social circle of your friends and contacts using the connections linked from your public Google profile, such as the people you’re following on Twitter or FriendFeed. The results are specific to you, so you need to be signed in to your Google Account to use Social Search. If you use Gmail, we’ll also include your chat buddies and contacts in your friends, family, and coworkers groups. And if you use Google Reader, we’ll include some websites from your subscriptions as part of your social search results. More…

Bing

Bing’s social integration is exclusive to Twitter (and eventually Facebook), while Google and Yahoo! both show results from multiple social networks that include Twitter.

Yahoo!

After a search is performed in Yahoo!, users have the option to view results from other social networks and authority websites from a list generated based on the keyphrase searched.

Endgame

Bing is focusing on Twitter while Yahoo! and Google are focusing on a number of social networks that include Twitter. Yahoo! doesn’t give you the option to select which social network to show results from – they decide for you based on the search phrase, while Google Social Search focuses on networks that the user is already engaged in.

However you slice it, social content is in the process of being integrated into mainstream search. Further integrating Social into SEO.