Social Bookmarking: A New Search Solution?

Integration with social bookmarking websites may represent a revolution in Internet search.

Social bookmarking websites like Digg, StumbleUpon, del.icio.us, and Reddit are among the most high-traffic websites on the Internet. On these sites, users post links to websites, and the community of users rate the site according to its quality. Some web analysts speculate that social powered search engines may be the future of search. It is believed that the human categorization and quality assurance that is already done on these sites may be combined with existing search algorithms to create a stronger search engine with higher quality results, but there still remain questions and problems that plague the current models of social search.

Already, the social search experiment is being tested with several ventures. 50 Matches, for example, is a webcrawler that only searches sites rated on social bookmarking sites. This selective filtering yields a small number of matches that are expected to be of higher quality than a computer-generated search.

A "human-optimized search" - especially one implemented on existing structures of human activity - sound ideal. However, some questions still remain when considering the possibility of social search. For example, how is a search engine going to know what the real "best" or most relevant results are based on these rankings? Social bookmarking ratings are highly based on sensationalism and the types of sites that offer interesting, but likely not-too-useful information. A social search site that has a mission to keep users entertained may be a great product, but as far as relevant search goes, the results may be less than perfect.

Next comes the concern about spam and unwanted results. It is likely that, if social search catches on, spammers would begin to assault popular social bookmarking sites with ratings to boost their own sites' "reputation". There would need to be some mechanism in the engine to confirm the validity of a user ranking on the social bookmarking side.

Next, web search tends to cater to the concept of The Long Tail, wherein the vast majority of search queries are performed very infrequently. A search engine that crawls social bookmarking sites alone loses the quantity of indexing that has made Google famous (though it should be noted that Google's PageRank system bears similarity to many social bookmarking models). The search results would almost assuredly suffer from a lack of breadth in websites indexed and would fail to generate relevant results for the majority of queries in the Long Tail.

For now, social search remains to be a big question mark in the future of search. Developments in social search may yet influence the future of search, but there are still a few big questions that need to be answered before a strong solution can be engineered.

Facebook Applications

Add-ons you can't miss!

Facebook.com has unleashed a flood of development over the last few weeks with the unveiling of their new development platform.

A couple of weeks ago, social network giant Facebook went live with its new platform for third-party application development. The unveiling, which came just in time for summer vacation (or final exams for many schools), is the beginning of what is perhaps the biggest change for Facebook since it began operations in 2004. Using the new Facebook Development Platform, developers can use Facebook data to build their applications for use inside user profiles. Alresady, a torrent of applications have been filling Facebook's directory, with promise of countless more to come.

With so many applications out there, it's hard to find the best of them. Here is just a sampling of a few applications that you simply have to check out:

1. 

   The Graffiti application allows users to draw pictures to their friends in a wall-to-wall format.

   Graffiti

   Stanford University sophomores Alex Onsager and Joachim De Lombaert bring you the Graffiti application, a box that nicely supplements Facebook's own Wall application. Instead of just plain text, though, Graffiti users can draw pictures on each others' walls in an environment similar to Microsoft Paint. At last you can add a little color to your friend's profile, or play a game of Tic-Tac-Toe wall-to-wall! The creators are busy adding new features to Graffiti, which promises to be a great way to doodle away the idle hours!

2. 

   Find true love with the Facebook Matches application.

   Matches

   For the socially awkward, there is finally a way to find the love of your life without ever leaving home! Got a crush on that cute girl in English? Simply match yourself with her and hope for the best! Users can anonymously match themselves with the apples of their eyes. If two people both match each other, then they are both notified via e-mail. Also peruse "Facebook's Most Wanted" and try to climb the rankings to become the number one most admired person on Facebook! It's a simple, rejection-free way of finding your admirers, and, hey, maybe it'll get you a date!

3. 

   This no-frills add-on simply displays your musical statistics.

   last.fm charts

   The much-anticipated official Last.fm application finally made an appearance about a week ago, but we prefer this simpler unofficial application. While the official application offers in-profile radio and album art, for the purists who simply want to show what music they are listening to, last.fm charts does the trick. You can choose from a flash-based or a table-based layout, and the application displays your most recently-played tracks from Last.fm. It is small and very unobtrusive, an application which doesn't overstuff your profile, yet still does a great job.

4. 

   iLike, which lets you add music and videos to your profile, and see who's going to what concerts, is the most used application on Facebook as of June 8, 2007.

   iLike

   If you aren't afraid of a full-fledged application inside your profile, check out iLike, the fastest growing application in Facebook's directory. iLike allows users to add songs and music videos to their profiles as well as keep an eye on what friends are going to what concerts in the area.

   Or, for another time-waster, try out the iLike Music Challenge, a competitive quiz to test your musical IQ. Try to best your friends' score by answering more questions correctly with more speed. Climb the ranks to become a music expert!