A few thoughts on Social Search – it’ll suck

In light of Google’s presumed move to take on Facebook in a head to head social battle the pundits are out in full force (I had my say yesterday) and the common consensus is that the reason for the upcoming battle of the giants has to do with Social Search. The premise here is that Facebook though the power of its Like button is creating the basis of a social search engine that is based on the power of the Like and Google is scared shitless that their 97% of the search market could be in danger.

Now this is probably some pretty smart prognostication on all the pundits part but why does everyone think that this Social Search is the cat’s ass?

First off what do we use search for on the web but to discover information that we want to find based on keywords we supply. Using everything from single keywords to carefully crafted search strings we scour the web looking for the best and most current information, and in the process making Google very rich. It is a process that is all based on algorithms that Google has spent years refining and is shrouded in secrecy, as it should be.

But now in this new social world we are being led to believe that the power of the algorithm is dated and so Web 1.0 and that the best search is going to be based around what all your friends like.

Really?

Let’s take a minute and look at this idea.

I mean really, do you even have a clue about all those people on Facebook that are your friends? Do you have any idea of what their political affiliations are? Or how about their sexual orientation?

How about their tastes? Are they schlock horror movie lovers in contrast to your artsy fartsy foreign film addiction? Are they a Pabst’s drinker where you like the best wines from France?

The fact is that all those friends could be the total opposite of you and yet they are going to affect what kind of results you will see in this new world of Social Search.

This move to Social Search has nothing to do with search but it does have everything to do with advertising and marketing. It is an effort to try and convince us that people we really don’t know, and probably wouldn’t if we bumped into them on the street, play some sort of important role in finding things we want.

Social Search .. yeah, that is going to work out well.