5 assumptions about social search
As any comp sci major knows, data is nothing more than a pile of facts. It takes meaning to turn data into useful, meaningful, actionable information. — And applying meaning to a pile of data is exactly what's behind the recent partnership between Facebook and Microsoft's Bing.
Context & Ripple Effects
The October 2010 Bing–Facebook search announcement was followed within weeks by Bing shipping its first social search features, which folded friends' activity into results pages. O'Reilly Radar's piece frames what that pairing actually is: not a feature bolt-on, but an attempt to apply social meaning to raw web data — turning a pile of facts into actionable answers.
That framing matters because it names the real asset at stake: Facebook holds the identity and preference graph, Microsoft holds a search engine that has struggled for differentiation against Google. The article's five assumptions are effectively a checklist of what both companies are betting the arrangement can overcome.
First-order effects
- Bing gains a ranking and presentation signal no rival can license at scale — friends' endorsements layered over web results — making social context its core differentiator against Google.
- Facebook extends its social graph beyond facebook.com into Microsoft's search surface without having to build or maintain a web-scale index itself.
Second-order effects
- Google faces pressure to respond in kind, either by deepening its own social data or by contesting the assumption that friend signals improve result quality — the exact assumptions Radar enumerates.
- Publishers and SEO practitioners see 'earning Likes' join inbound links as a ranking input, shifting optimization effort toward Facebook-visible engagement.
Third-order effects
- If social endorsement proves durable as a ranking signal, search economics tilt toward whoever owns the verified identity layer, raising unresolved questions about user consent when private social activity shapes public results.
The trend: Web search is shifting from the anonymous link graph toward identity-based social signals as a primary relevance input, with the Facebook–Microsoft alliance as the template.