Social Search Pits Google Against Twitter

What’s the Latest Development?

Google has debuted a new search tool that draws results from Google+, its social networking platform, and photo sharing sites like Picasa. Now, when you use Google’s Search Plus Your World, you can see if your online friends are interested in similar topics. However, not everyone is happy with the new idea. Twitter, where the most current news updates are found, argues that the new tool does a general disservice to readers and news organizations by not including Twitter posts in social search results.

What’s the Big Idea?

Combining search and social media will further integrate your online friends into your Internet experience (if you want to integrate them more—the new search option can be toggled off). How will the integration of social media change what information we look for and how we use information once we’ve found it? Google’s new tool demonstrates how greatly social networking has changed the way we use the Internet, showing the pervasiveness of our need to be connected to one another through community.

Photo credit: shutterstock.com