Google's got social game

Google has added a new tool: Social Search. Accessible via Google Labs, Social Search provides results culled from the searcher's social media graph.

Just as there are separate tabs in the normal Google search for images, blogs, video, etc., once you opt in to the Social Search experiment you'll see a new tab for social-enhanced search-engine results.

For now, I'd consider this tool pretty bleeding-edge: the requirements for opting in, creating a Google profile and logging in to your Google account will curb the initial group using this tool.

However, if you wish you had thought more about video for search-engine optimization (SEO) before Google started blending video results into the regular search results, here's your chance for one of their next additions.

For the past year or so, we've all been hearing about and experiencing how social Web activities produce results because social capital carries more meaning and influence than traditional paid advertising or other large-audience, reach-based methods (like SEO).

It makes sense at a gut level that decisions like choosing a real estate professional to work with can be influenced by knowing someone who had a positive experience.

Google, being in the business of selling advertising sprinkled around search results, would like to provide the most influential and relevant results to those using their search product. So it only makes sense that they'd be looking for a way to enhance their search results with sources that are closer, in terms of relationships, to the searcher.

Here's how you can try out the new social search tool.

• Get a Google Profile if you don't have one already. (Yes, I know, yet another social media profile to manage.)
• In your Google Profile, add all your other social media profiles as "other links."
• Go to the Google Labs page.
• Opt in to the Social Search experiment. ...CONTINUED

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