'Focus on the User' retools Google Social Search to work with all networks
Engineers from Facebook, Twitter and Myspace have banded together to "Focus on the user:" a project that reworks Google's social search update to include all social networks instead of it's own.
So as Google released Search Plus Your World to coincide with their social networking service, people realised that this wasn't exactly 'social' and it wasn't really 'your world.' As we made rather clear, for this to be seen as a social search it needs to be open, and that's exactly what this developed bookmarlet does.
Editorial: Why Social search may not be such a good idea
So it's probably been made abundantly clear, via multiple news stories and finding the functionality yourself as Google presents search results via it's Google+ service, that search has expanded to social, titled 'search, plus your world.'
And we also know, as the BBC reports, that Twitter isn't such a fan of this integration by Google, going so far as to say it is a "bad day for the internet." These comments have been made for the public facing reason of Twitter being a source of real-time information, which should be there for the user who wants the most relevant and up-to-date content. The more behind-the-scenes reasoning probably relates to their network not taking any precedence on the search, due to their partnership with Google ending quite a while ago.
Social networking strops aside, points have been made on both sides, and it's why I think Google's expanded social search isn't the best idea they've come up with, for both non-users and users of Google+. It's not going to benefit the people because it contradicts the foundation of such an impactful product as search. It does this in two ways.
Socl: Microsoft's secret social network goes live, then disappears again
Microsoft let the social cat out of the bag tonight, publishing Socl.com to the web temporarily, then removing it promptly with this spash-screen. A creation of the FUSE research group, we managed to take a short look around, and managed to find a few key pointers to the service.