Ruminations

Information from Strangers?

The scariest quote in media news today was in the New York Times’ story “Google Adds Social Network to Search Results,” in which Google is reported to be adding the contents of its social network, Google Plus, to Google search results.  Google Fellow Amit Singhal is quoted as saying, “What you search today is largely written by people you don’t know,” and that Google’s new social-search feature “transforms search and centers it around you.”

Aargh.  Imagine a world in which the only news or information we received was from people we already knew.  We’d be somewhere in the 14^th century.  I recently asked a handful of undergraduates where they were getting most of the news they felt they needed to get on with their lives.  The #1 answer was facebook.  No wonder Google wants to add this feature to its search results.

One of the great values of journalism is its ability to transmit ideas and information that people would never have obtained otherwise — not even from their friends.  And yes, it often involves strangers.  Truth-seeking, skilled strangers.  Whose work is often accessed in a Google search (assuming the user can move beyond the results’ commercial priorities).

Thankfully, Google seems to have no plans to supplant its “traditional” search result with a social-only version; this will be an additional dimension of the search result, and one that the user will be able to turn off.