I had a great discussion with a friend when he introduced me to a concept of internet searches through social networks. Can’t say I understood his point but he took the effort to explain the concept. Rarely do we perform an open ended search, we are typically looking for an answer to a question and once you are able to filter out the noise we are looking for more information about the answer itself. When we choose a place for dinner, we start with a location/cuisine then the restaurant but here is where the social nature of the search starts to become relevant. How do most people get to the restaurant? What are the options for conveyance? Where do you park? Who easy is to get in and out of the area? Do you take highway X or Y? Contextual searches help influence our choices, looking for something is one thing but to choose one of the results to act on is a whole different issue.
The concept is not much different from what AMAZON offers but the information is very concentrated around the book or the product not peripheral and the social interaction with the informant and or the reviewer is not fostered.
The idea of social network based searches is less of an actual search and more of creation of options. The greater the cohesion with the recommending party and the congruence of the value system the more the influence!
Could we be we moving from pure search into search-fluence?
