Social Media Search on the Horizon

Over 10 years ago, Google was virtually unknown on the Internet. Today, Google is synonymous with search. Search engines have become one of the most useful tools on the Internet, helping users find the most relevant information. Fast forward to 2009 to find another aspect of the World Wide Web starting out like the search engine—social media. Social media has brought together like-minded people across the world through forums, blogs, social networks and microblogging (among others). But where do users find these social sites? Different companies are starting to index social sites, bringing social media search to the forefront.

WhosTalkin.com is one site which aims to categorize and index social media sites. For example, an inquiry gives results in blogs, news, networks, videos, images, forums and tags. From these categories, users can search in specific outlets. Say a user wanted to view the results in ‘networks’. Options like Facebook and Myspace are available. Users can then click on the link and find out where the conversations on their searches are happening. WhosTalkin.com is not the only site looking to categorize social media outlets. SocialMention.com is another site looking to achieve this goal. As social media becomes more and more prominent in the Internet industry, we begin to see its influence in places such as search.