5 ms·

I'm starting to see Google search results based on my social circle

32 points by AndrewWarner 17y ago

icey 17y ago
Whoa... Any idea how to turn this off? My friends have terrible taste.
- AndrewWarner 17y ago
  Its kind of buggy right now. It's showing that I have lots of contacts, but my social search results seem to be based on a social circle of one: me.
- maddalab 17y ago
  Speaking about taste.... they are your friends :)
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - bravura 17y ago
    I know you're joking but it's worth saying: pick your friends because they are decent and kind people, not because they have the sane interests as you.
    - maddalab 17y ago
      I was joking, but we are speaking about taste, not interest. Since you usually make friends in the social circles you inhabit, it would be likely that your friends share similar if not the same interests. On the flip side, not every one who is kind and decent will be a good friend to you.
    - icey 17y ago
      Eh, I thought it was funny :D Most of my friends are not in the software industry; they're busy Googling how to operate their AOL subscription, not the nitty gritty of JVM internals.
    - araneae 17y ago
      This is terrible advice. Kind and decent people are usually boring to talk to, and it's especially bad if you have no interests in common with them.
motters 17y ago
Interesting. This is almost like becoming a collective brain when searching for stuff.
DanielBMarkham 17y ago
I do NOT want my social circle to have influence in my search decisions. It's only going to encourage more of the groupthink/clanning crap we already have so bad on the net.
- dws 17y ago
  I'm mixed on this. But it does explain a weird "Google for X, it's on the first page," "No, it's not!" incident at work that resulted in a 5 minute team Googlefest.
  - Hexstream 17y ago
    It could also be due to http://www.google.com/history/optout?hl=en http://www.google.com/history/optout?hl=en I disabled this. It's appaling that it's on by default.
csarva 17y ago
This is something I've wondered about for a long time and glad to see it being implemented. The current iteration seems to have lots of random people listed as first order connections though.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
andrewcooke 17y ago
I'm finding Google more and more intrusive. On their help page they say to log out of your account if you don't want this, but then I lose my gmail connection. I've tried switching to bing for searches, but it's not as good. So I am thinking of moving from gmail - does anyone have any good recommendations as a replacement? [edit: anyone use runbox?]
nethergoat 17y ago
Note that this feature is (for now, at least) designed to add weight to content _created_ by your social circle. It does not, as I first thought, modify your search results based on friends' preferences. From Google's FAQ: "Google Social Search is a feature designed to help you discover relevant publicly-accessible content from your social circle, a set of online friends and contacts. The idea is that content from your friends and social contacts is often more relevant to you than content from strangers. For example, a movie review from an expert is useful, but a movie review from your best friend can be even better." More info here: http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=165228 http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&...

32 points by AndrewWarner 17y ago

icey 17y ago

Whoa... Any idea how to turn this off? My friends have terrible taste.

AndrewWarner 17y ago
Its kind of buggy right now. It's showing that I have lots of contacts, but my social search results seem to be based on a social circle of one: me.
maddalab 17y ago
Speaking about taste.... they are your friends :)
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- bravura 17y ago
  I know you're joking but it's worth saying: pick your friends because they are decent and kind people, not because they have the sane interests as you.
  - maddalab 17y ago
    I was joking, but we are speaking about taste, not interest. Since you usually make friends in the social circles you inhabit, it would be likely that your friends share similar if not the same interests. On the flip side, not every one who is kind and decent will be a good friend to you.
  - icey 17y ago
    Eh, I thought it was funny :D Most of my friends are not in the software industry; they're busy Googling how to operate their AOL subscription, not the nitty gritty of JVM internals.
  - araneae 17y ago
    This is terrible advice. Kind and decent people are usually boring to talk to, and it's especially bad if you have no interests in common with them.

motters 17y ago

Interesting. This is almost like becoming a collective brain when searching for stuff.

DanielBMarkham 17y ago

I do NOT want my social circle to have influence in my search decisions. It's only going to encourage more of the groupthink/clanning crap we already have so bad on the net.

dws 17y ago
I'm mixed on this. But it does explain a weird "Google for X, it's on the first page," "No, it's not!" incident at work that resulted in a 5 minute team Googlefest.
- Hexstream 17y ago
  It could also be due to http://www.google.com/history/optout?hl=en http://www.google.com/history/optout?hl=en I disabled this. It's appaling that it's on by default.

csarva 17y ago

This is something I've wondered about for a long time and glad to see it being implemented. The current iteration seems to have lots of random people listed as first order connections though.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

andrewcooke 17y ago

I'm finding Google more and more intrusive. On their help page they say to log out of your account if you don't want this, but then I lose my gmail connection. I've tried switching to bing for searches, but it's not as good. So I am thinking of moving from gmail - does anyone have any good recommendations as a replacement? [edit: anyone use runbox?]

nethergoat 17y ago

Note that this feature is (for now, at least) designed to add weight to content _created_ by your social circle. It does not, as I first thought, modify your search results based on friends' preferences. From Google's FAQ: "Google Social Search is a feature designed to help you discover relevant publicly-accessible content from your social circle, a set of online friends and contacts. The idea is that content from your friends and social contacts is often more relevant to you than content from strangers. For example, a movie review from an expert is useful, but a movie review from your best friend can be even better." More info here: http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=165228 http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&...