Jeetu's shared memory

Late last year we released the Social Search experiment to make search more personal with relevant web content from your friends and online contacts. We were excited by the number of people who chose to try it out, and today Social Search is available to everyone in beta on google.com.

We’ve been having a lot of fun with Social Search. It’s baby season here on our team — two of us just had little ones, and a third is on the way. We’re all getting ready to be parents for the first time and we have lots of questions. So, what do we do? We search Google, of course! With Social Search, when we search for [baby sleep patterns], [swaddling] or [best cribs], not only do we get the usual websites with expert opinions, we also find relevant pages from our friends and contacts. For example, if one of my friends has written a blog where he talks about a great baby shop he found in Mountain View, this might appear in my social results. I could probably find other reviews, but my friend’s blog is more relevant because I know and trust the author.

While we’ve been enjoying Social Search (and having babies), we’ve been hard at work on new features. For example, we’ve added social to Google Images. Now when you’re doing a search on Images, you may start seeing pictures from people in your social circle. These are pictures that your friends and other contacts have published publicly to the web on photo-sharing sites like Picasa Web Albums and Flickr. Just like the other social results, social image results appear under a special heading called “Results from your social circle.” Here’s what it looks like:
Looking at the screenshot, you may notice two new links for “My social circle” and “My social content.” These links will take you to a new interface we’ve added where you can see the connections and content behind your social results. Clicking on “My social circle” shows your extended network of online contacts and how you’re connected.

Clicking on “My social content” lists your public pages that might appear in other people’s social results. This new interface should give you a peek under the hood of how Social Search builds your social circle and connects you with web content from your friends and extended network. You can check out your social circle directly by visiting this link. (Note that it may take some time for the connections and content to update.)

We think there’s tremendous potential for social information to improve search, and we’re just beginning to scratch the surface. We’re leaving a “beta” label on social results because we know there’s a lot more we can do. If you want to get the most out of Social Search right away, get started by creating a Google profile, where you can add links to your other public online social services. Check out this short video to learn more:

The new features are rolling out now on google.com in English for all signed-in users, and you should start seeing them in the next few days. Time to socialize!

Posted by Maureen Heymans, Technical Lead for Social Search, and Terran Melconian, Technical Lead for Social Image Search

Times of India reports that the buying pattern of Indian consumers has changed with time, more so for the good of companies who run their business over the web. Alibaba, recently conducted a search over the web, the result of which turned out to be a pleasant surprise that ‘The Indian’ especially the Indian Entrepreneurs have started using the web as a medium to buy more of pre-used products. Figures are not always misleading, and I guess it is true when it is further stated that Searches for second-hand products by Indian B2B (business-to-business) buyers on recorded in November, 2009 were 280 per cent higher than 2008 representing an average monthly increase of 14 per cent. Sounds astonishing at a time when the market is  just picking up.

Pre-used products which are scoring high over others majorly include cars, laptops, bikes and mobile phones. The surprising fact is that even non-consumer second-hand products, including used machines, rails, containers, tractors and generators are also in demand over the internet. True, some reasons are beyond logic, but the reason can be attributed to the more cautious spending habit of consumers in the soon ending recession phase.

The Internet Business to Business medium is actually a hit. The reasons for the same are as follows -

1. The Indian consumer is well aware of the price, brand, product details, reviews and also has the options available. And, to top it all, if he/she can get it within a few clicks what better. The ’service at one’s doorstep’ is all that one wants at the end.

2. The Internet is highly value sensitive. Online buyers tend to think and research more about the value associated with it and not the price. The price will play an important role, but only in the days when we hear about the word ‘recession’. In times to come, you and me will care more about value, because the salaries and the disposable income will both be on a high.

3. With the increase in ‘Technology Optimists’, the online buying pattern will only increase. And, add to that the service available with credit cards and other finance facilities; the safety is the only thing which one needs to be alert about.

4. Not only are the products or brands being looked into; but the entire experience and ambiance of a shopping related website also matters. This has already been understood by a few retail players who are also into the online sphere and the trend will soon catchup.

Apart from all the above and more, the growth of E-Commerce is one of the biggest contributors providing a big boost to the Online Buying Process. Combine the better usage of factors such as Technology, Easiness, Price, Safety and Online Stores; and you have a herd which is constantly upgrading themselves to make the most out of it.

So, where does the future of online buying lie? The Answer lies in a term known as ‘Web Personalization’. In other words, the ability of a B2B seller to customize a product based on user preferences. Dell’s online model is one of the cult examples. And, the day other B2B sites are able to come up and be in the competition zone, we can very well see the doomsday for brick and mortar business models; at-least for the netizens.

All I want to say is, let’s imagine a hassle free electronic world which only evolves on the web. Imagination is the first step towards success. Note the point.

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destinyland writes “AI researcher Jurgen Schmidhuber says his main scientific ambition ‘is to build an optimal scientist, then retire.’ The Cognitive Robotics professor has worked on problems including artificial ants and even robots that are taught how to tie shoelaces using reinforcement learning, but he believes algorithms can be written that allow the programming of curiosity itself. ‘Curiosity is the desire to create or discover more non-random, non-arbitrary, regular data that is novel and surprising…’ He’s already created art using algorithmic information theory, and can describe the simple algorithmic principle that underlies subjective beauty, creativity, and curiosity itself. And he ultimately addresses the possibility that the entire Universe, including everyone in it, is in principle computable by a completely deterministic computer program.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

• Feb 4th: Bangalore Bus Day

January 26, 2010

If you live in Bangalore, you’d empathize with the clip below:

Do you hate Bangalore traffic as much as most of us do?

Well, here’s a chance to be a part of an interesting social experiment conducted by the BMTC. They are organizing ‘Bus Day’ on Thursday, Feb 4th 2010. It’s simple. Leave your personal vehicle at home, and use public transport to get to work.

Never taken the bus, and dont know the routes? Well, here’s a neat little route map that’s printer friendly: (Click here). And if you are headed to Electronic City or ITPL, here are the bus routes (Click here)

TAKE THE BUS TO WORK ON FEB 4th!

All said and done, you might be reading this and dismissing it as yet another passing fad or idealistic initiative. And you may well be right. Public transport may not be the only answer, and needs to be complemented with better infrastructure, better traffic management, and wider metro coverage. But then, take a minute to think of all the pain that the traffic situation gives us today. Give this initiative a chance. Share this post with colleagues and friends. As their slogan says, “Take the bus, boss!”

• Google Reader Can Now Track Changes to Any Website – Even if it Can’t Find a Feed

January 25, 2010

Google just announced an interesting update to Google Reader. Google’s online feed reader now allows you to track changes on any page – even those that don’t feature an RSS feed. Google will create its own custom feeds for these sites and update the feed whenever it notices a change. Google Reader will display a short snippet of the page changes in the RSS feed.

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Until today, Google Reader would simply respond with an error message if you tried to subscribe to a site that didn’t offer an RSS feed. Now, Google will simply create a new feed for the site and track updates. It’s not clear how often Google plans to ping these sites, however.

Thanks to this, you can easily track the latest discounts on Macys.com or updates to Zillow.com’s homepage.

As far as we were able to see, Google Reader creates very clean RSS feeds for these items. While Google doesn’t make it obvious, you can find the newly created feed by clicking “show details” in Google Reader. Thanks to this, you can subscribe to this new feed in any feed reader and not just in Google Reader.

There are, of course, a number of other sites that also allow you to track when something changes on a site. ChangeDetection.com, for example, is a popular online service that will alert you whenever a page changes. Unlike Google Reader’s new feature, ChangeDetection.com also gives you a very detailed overview of of what exactly changed and what the page looked like before. The service also offers an RSS feed of these changes.

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• Infibeam#39;s Pi: Amazon like eBook Reader (for India)

January 25, 2010

Update: The Indian telecom regulatory body TRAI has been struck with the realisation,  supremely delayed as it is, that consumer complaints are not being addressed by the three-tiered structure most operators have – customer care, nodal officers and appellate authorities and has decided to set up an online complaints register by April 1, 2010 to [...]

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