Google Unveils Social Search Beta

Last year, Google announced it would be incorporating the social web into search. Users can incorporate their social connections into search. For instance, if you wanted to search a product review within social search, you could find your friend’s latest review of that product, as well as what experts are saying. The result of having a more social experience during search is for Google to have a better understanding of your search habits, personalizing your search queries. Google personalizes your search experience based on your Web History.

Google has now opened its beta Social Search to everyone. ReadWriteWeb writes, “The experimental feature will surface search results from the social streams (bookmarks, blog posts, photos, etc.) of a user’s contacts on services like Gmail, Google Reader or Twitter”. ReadWriteWeb also notes that Social Search is clearly blowing past Facebook’s search function. One issue that comes up when talking about Social Search, however, is: Why would anyone want to limit the Internet to their social circle? Luckily, this doesn’t have to be the case. Social Search is a mix of the Internet and your contacts.

How do you see Social Search playing out?