Search Results Based on Your Social Network

A new company, Delver, is offering a new take on web searching that plans to make your social network a part of the equation. "Liad Agmon, CEO of Delver, says that the site connects information about a user's social network with Web search results, "so you are searching the Web through the prism of your social graph." He explains that a person begins a search at Delver by typing in her name. Delver then crawls social-networking websites for widely available data about the user--such as a public LinkedIn profile--and builds a network of associated institutions and individuals based on that information. When the user enters a search query, results related to, produced by, or tagged by members of her social network are given priority. Lower down are results from people implicitly connected to the user, such as those relating to friends of friends, or people who attended the same college as the user. Finally, there may be some general results from the Web at the bottom."

Things you don't want to know about your friends

[RobertB-DC]

I'm thoroughly unlikely to use a system that ranks my search results based on the preferences of my friends. I know *I* never put anything but the most basic information about me online (name and website is all that's required by the Geneva Convention, right?). So anyone whose searches are based on *my* stated interests will find a bunch of Dixie Chicks stuff, and little else.

And what about my searches based on *their* interests? Do I even *want* to know what they're doing with their time online? Even if the results aren't personalized ("Jim would probably like this link"), I'd rather not do a search on sushi restaurants [cliffdwellermagazine.com] and learn to my dismay that one or more of my friends has interests that include tentacle porn. And I don't even want to *think* about what could happen on a search for a good plate of cabrito [texasmonthly.com]!

inside the box

[Tom]

That's exactly what most of the dumbasses who vote people like Bush into office need: A world-view tuned more to what and who they already know.

Thanks for making sure they'll never be confronted with the world outside their small box.

Re:Suggest new people!

[merreborn]

That would be cool if they used your friends and such to suggest you new people to become friends with, à la Last.fm [www.last.fm], with people instead of music.

We've been arguing about that concept here at the office lately. I'm of the opinion that I don't care *who* has similar interests (the last.fm model), I just want to know *what* people with similar interests like (the amazon.com model).

Similarly, I like to think that a lot more goes into the decision of who I'd want to friend than can be divined from raw data on my interests. I'm interested in friending people that make insightful, well reasoned comments, even if their interests are completely the opposite of mine, in some cases; accordingly, I have no interest in friending someone who shares my interests, but happens to be a blathering, infantile bigot.