Google Social Search

A day filled with Google Announcements (back to back). Last week Google announced a search deal with Twitter and now to deal with firehose of social data it unveiled Social Search. In simple words Social Search helps you to find/search publicly available data (populated by your contacts) on social networking sites . For a time being it includes search results from Twitter, FriendFeed, Picassa, Blogger, Gmail ,Google Reader, Digg ,Flickr etc.  But it doesn’t include Facebook, the largest social networking site with 300 million users. I am amazed to see Friendfeed as it had been acquired by Facebook. The main goal of Social Search is to help you find reliable and trusted content from your contacts and helps to segregate spam. If you really wish to see the search results from your contacts, you need to update your Google Profile with the information of your social networking accounts. You can try Social search, which is now available for testing in Google Labs.

Google also announced that Voice will now work with your existing mobile number (if you don’t want Google number). You can also add Google Voicemail service, which will record your Mobile voicemail in Google Voice inbox.  These messages can also be received in the form of text in your email or as a text message in your mobile phones.  But the high-end features like call recording and call screening are present only if you choose to have Google number.

Follow-Up

Google Social Search

Complete Analysis

SearchEngineLand: Google Social Search Launches, Gives Results From Your Trusted “Social Circle”  by Danny Sullivan

Neutral

TechCrunch: Google Social Search: Twitter and FriendFeed Highlighted. What about Facebook?  by MG Siegler

Thumbs Down!

L.A. Times: Google starts testing Social Search. ‘Creppy,’ naysayers mutter  by Mark Milian

Google Voice

Thumbs Up!

TechCrunch: Google Voice Can Now Take Control Of Your Mobile Voicemail  by Michael Arrington

Bits: Google Voice ‘Lite’- No New Number Required  by Miguel Helft

GigaOm: Google Voice, Now Serving on Your Numbers  by Om Malik

Image Credit: CNET News