Google Merges Google+ Into Search

SharkLaser writes "Google is today launching an update to their search engine. This update is intended to bring you personalized search results based on your Google+ friends, sharing, pictures and likes. They're calling it 'Search plus Your World,' and the update is going to automatically personalize all search results to a greater degree than before. These personalized matches will appear along your normal search results. For example, if you are searching for images of babies, Google will now personalize your search results and give high preference to baby photos from your Google+ circles. TechCrunch is speculating that over time they will also start adding search results from all the other Google services, including Google Docs, Gmail, Contacts, Music, Voice, wallet and so on. Today's launch also uses Google+ data for another purpose: helping you search for information about people on Google+. For example, if you are searching Google for 'music,' Google will now display relevant people and pages from Google+, like Britney Spears, Alicia Keys and Snoop Dogg." Update: 01/10 18:40 GMT by S : Changed the summary to reflect that the idea of adding search results from other services was speculation from TechCrunch, and not something Google said.

Comments

Re:Desperation?

[DragonWriter]

I guess they need to find some way to get people to use Google+...

Google has been up front from the beginning that the long-term plan for Google+ (and the reason for the name) was that it was going to be an integrated social layer that interacted deeply with the rest of Google's services, not a separate standalone service.

Use DuckDuckGo instead

[gQuigs]

I've pretty much switched to http://duckduckgo.com/

Check out http://dontbubble.us/ and http://donttrack.us/. This would be an example of bubbling, btw.

And if you don't find results (I'd say Google has better results about 20-30% of the time) !g brings that search term to Google.

Re:Please no

[recoiledsnake]

>Secondly, you assert that MapQuest is dying off because of Google integrating maps into Google Search, but you offer no evidence

http://www.thewindowsclub.com/fairsearch-coalition-prepares-report-googles-alleged-anticompetitive-conduct

>My experiences with MapQuest and it's user interface were far inferior to my Google Maps experience.

Netscape was pretty inferior to IE4 as well.

>Finally, no one is being forced to use any particular service of Google's and no one is forcing one to use Google's other services if one uses Google Search.

Microsoft never prevented anyone from installing or using Netscape either.

Re:Good job, Google

[icebraining]

Or you can just click the button they offer that disables the G+ personalization.

Re:Please no

[Requiem18th]

I resist. Try http://duckduckgo.com/ or http://startpage.com./ It's possible.

Re:Improve results

[Hognoxious]

For me, the search should be deterministic based on what I actually type in at any one time.

It doesn't matter if I'm a member of 274 classic car groups; if I search for "mustang USAF WW2 FW190" chances are it's the fighter plane I'm interested in.

Re:This kinda breaks things for me

[AmbushBug]

When I'm searching it's because 'my world' doesn't know the answer and I have to go elsewhere. Filtering out people I don't know first makes it harder to find things.

Good thing they put a toggle right there in the upper right corner that will remove all the personalized stuff from your search results! You can even have it default to off in your settings!

Re:Please no

[Lundse]

Google just doesn't understand why people want to use social networking sites and what people want.

Google is not out to give you what you want. They are out to change what you want. They might fail with you, but you are not their entire user segment. They are going to make search social. Have people log in, in order to use their hugely popular services (gmail, maps, etc.), then add all our usage data to their search servers, enabling better, and more importantly, new areas of search.

They may be a late comer to the SN business, but they are not out to "compete too late" (that would be Microsoft's business plan). They are out to change, not just social networking, but the web.