21. Is searching a social activity? Absolutely. But the current breed of social n/w platforms aren't anywhere near mature enough to form useful context to search (see Adam Greenfield's "Social networking sites: a postmortem" http://www.v-2.org/displayArticle.php?article_num=790)

I'd be curious to see how ad-hoc metadata systems such as XFN (http://gmpg.org/xfn/1) will fare over time.

If you've got any more gmail a/cs left, count me in!

Thanks,
Alan.

Posted at 8:03PM on Dec 18th 2005 by Alan Pyne

22. thanks for your comments! if i missed you in this most recent group of invites, please leave me another gentle reminder... (-:=

Posted at 8:03PM on Dec 18th 2005 by judith

23. Hey Judith
I saw your last post about sending gmail invites. I thought I'll let you know that I haven't received any as yet. Can you please send me one? Thank you for coming up with an interesting post like this.

Posted at 8:03PM on Dec 18th 2005 by Nirav

24. Hi Judith,
Would you mind to send me gmail invite please. Thanks.

Posted at 8:03PM on Dec 18th 2005 by kus

25. I would love one of them gmail invites, please.

Elizabeth

Posted at 8:03PM on Dec 18th 2005 by Elizabeth LeDoux

26. The problem I have with searches that are based on previous searches, or on searches performed by my friends, is that my searches are generally unique and not related to other searches at all.

Recomendations and similarities work great at Amazon because I watch the same kind of movies. I just don't think they'd work well with searching.

Brian mentioned that the search engine could "weed out" results, but if I'm searching for research on Bill Gates, I don't want a bunch of results discussing his car(s) if I spent all yesterday trying to find a new car.

I shouldn't have to tell the SE to put the other non-related results back in.

That and my "myspace" account kind of just sits there, they need to make it faster, less cluttered, and actually _important_ to me. Like google.

or gmail *hint hint*

Posted at 8:03PM on Dec 18th 2005 by Daniel

27. "is that my searches are generally unique and not related to other searches at all."
You'd be surprised how much intelligence goes into things like Grokker and Eurekster. I think that you might be making assumptions that when you search for something like "Commodore 64 5.25 disk drives" that your 2nd or 3rd degree filter on that search is going to be literal....of course it's not.
I DON'T like google, because the results I get from it are increasingly NOT relevant as time goes by, in my view. I honestly think that the polluting of the working set by ad-originating influences is bringing google's results to crap. I think that of course it will take time, but search integrated with social networking can get a little bit closer to what happens in real life: I usually ask my friends (if they are standing there) if they know anything about what I'm looking for, *before* I turn to google.

Google can't ask my friends what they think.

Posted at 8:03PM on Dec 18th 2005 by James

28. You can create a profile at "http://labs.google.com/personalized . After completing a profile, searches made at Personalized Google produce the usual list of results as well as a “personalisation slider” to apply your profile to search results. So that you can vary between different degrees of personalizations.

There's also this (http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3384481) article on search engine watch that discusses the future of searching:
Representatives from the world's biggest search engine companies sat down with Danny Sullivan and several hundred of his closest friends to talk about the future of search and information retrieval.

and in other new... if you still have any of those invites, do consider... :)

Posted at 8:03PM on Dec 18th 2005 by Muhammad Ali

29. Hi there.

I'd greatly appreciate one of the invites, if there are any left.

Thank in advance,
M

Posted at 8:03PM on Dec 18th 2005 by Michael Leery

30. Thanks for your column, and interesting thoughts. I'm intrigued by collaborative work on the internet, whether through searches or blogs, or wherever.

And I, too, would love a gmail account, thanks!

Liz

Posted at 8:03PM on Dec 18th 2005 by Liz Castro

31. I don't really care too much who I'll be using in the future, whether it's in six months or two years. If they're easy to use, reliable, fits my needs, and doesn't bother me too much, then that's what will get to me keep coming back. Change your service in a way that makes things undesirable for me, bye.

"In which of your communities of contacts would it be most relevant for you to share the results of your searches?"

Family, friends, and online groups that share the same interests.

"Among business cohorts on a project? Do you really want to share, or are you tempted to hold your ninja searching techniques to your chest?"

If I was better at searching than my coworkers, I probably wouldn't share my secrets, just the end results.

If a search engine morphed into a social network, I would like control over who I shared advanced search queries with.

In your other post, you asked about social networks: "What works for you with these services? What doesn’t work?"

Some of them are having language clashes. I hope they realize how distracting it is to see so many things we don't even understand. Many languages have different alphabets, so if it's not installed on someone else's machine, then a bunch of ??? are seen. Doesn't that embarrass them to have that in their social network?

Allow us to set our language(s), and to hide languages we don't understand.

Also, user moderation like Slashdot would be lovely, to squeeze out the spammers/trolls.

Thank you if you still have a Gmail invitation.

Posted at 8:03PM on Dec 18th 2005 by Toolman

32. I wrote about this before:
http://epeus.blogspot.com/2004_07_01_epeus_archive.html#108944175191119011

Searching for keywords is missing the point.

The great thing about weblogs is when you discover someone. Someone who makes sense to you, or someone who surprises you with a viewpoint you hadn't thought of. Once you have found them you can subscribe to their feeds and see how they can keep inspiring or surprising you.
Blogging is about what you discover, not about what you search for.
How you can follow the conversations and make new discoveries is what I'm working on.

Posted at 8:03PM on Dec 18th 2005 by Kevin Marks

33. I think that the concept of socially networked searches sounds very interesting and inviting. However I feel that the reality of such systems is a little scarier to contemplate.

In priciniple the socially networked searching would be quite cool from the standpoint of sharing results, say with a group of friends, co-workers, or project team-members, but the key is the context.

Without solid context controls, these types of systems would be a maelstrom of potential trouble just waiting to be realized. Context is a reatively simple thing on the surface, but let me ask, would you trust a piece of software to determine context for you? I know I wouldn't.

Context in this, well, context is quite fuzzy and even with software assistance the ultimate controller of context would be the user. And what if the user forgets to explicitly set context and a set of searches or results are shared with the wrong person(s)?

Divorce, job loss, loss of privacy..

All of these are very real concerns that must be considered before we jump headlong into the realm of socially networked searching.

Just my $0.02 worth!

p.s. Great site, excellent and stimulating content!

Posted at 8:03PM on Dec 18th 2005 by James Colyer

34. Your the best

Posted at 8:03PM on Dec 18th 2005 by Chris Montigolo

35. Personally, I do not particularly understand the concept(s) and application(s) of "social networking" as something that can be, or is, implemented in software and/or provided as a "service". I can only say that when I "sign up" for such a site, I don't have much to contribute and have yet to recognize any particular benefit from having joined (I've withdrawn from ones that I "joined").

That said, I have been an active member, at various times, of "online communities", such as CompuServe forums in which shared interests and activities were discussed; disputes and conflicts occurred and were resolved; people requested and received advice and assistance, information and referrals to people who were not participants, etc. Essentiallly, the software systems served to enable us to "meet one another online", to communicate with one another, and such activitiy resulted in the formation of a "network" of acquaintances, friends, partners, etc.

Naturally, I am and have been a member (in the flesh) of various and sundry "offline" communities --e.g., a church, a college, a company of workers, etc. About the only difference between them and the online communities is that you can see and interact with someone in "real time", and there are some interactions that are certainly best conducted in the flesh. :-)

How does this relate to "search"?? When I want to find something, or someone, then there are often many ways to go about it. Of course, I can ask people that I know, whether my acquaintance is only online, or only in the flesh (or both), and, there are lots of compendia such as the Yellow Pages (essentially, a paper-based database), "classified ads", or services such as the venerable Google. In that respect, I think that the "next step" in search will be the ability to search computerized databases which are available _via_ the internet, but not necessarily (at this time) _via_ a search service such as Google. For Google and other search services that we have used thus far, the multitude of pages that comprise the World Wide Web _is_ the database that they search.

All that said, as far as I know, I don't personally know anyone who has or who is likely to obtain a G-mail account, so I don't expect to be "invited" to subscribe to one. From what I've read about them, I'm not sure that I would want someone sifting through my e-mail messages, searching for data as to what products and services that I buy and use, so that the searchers can advertise to me. After all, do YOU know anyone who simply doesn't see, hear and/or read ENOUGH advertising every day of every year??

Posted at 8:03PM on Dec 18th 2005 by Ocie Hudson

36. Hi Judith,

To be honest I reached here when I clicked a link while searching for Gmail account. I read your blog and its very informative.

Thanks.. please give me a Gmail invitation.

Posted at 8:03PM on Dec 18th 2005 by Intikhab

37. we sell all kinds of mobile phones,mp3,mp4,ipods,psp,ps3,x-box 360,laptops,cameras and delivery services

Posted at 8:03PM on Dec 18th 2005 by LISBON ORLANDO