When you are signed into your Google account, Google Social Search will help you find relevant information from people in your social circle (i.e.: friends and acquaintances).
For example if you are searching for a Mexican restaurant nearby then if Patty – hi Patty we all know you like food 🙂 – has left a review somewhere on the web about a particular Mexican restaurant in Vancouver then it will appear more prominently in the search results.
You can join the experiment here: http://www.google.com/experimental/
You can watch a video by Maureen that demonstrates the features of Google Social Search in plain english. Awesome video by-the-way Maureen 🙂
The “special” results will show up at the bottom of the page in an area called “Results from people in your social circle.”
To filter your results to ONLY see comments from your circle of trust at the top of your search result page:
- Click on “Show Options” to open the Options Panel
- Click on “Social” and you are done:)
- If you don’t want to see the social results you either sign out from your Google account or leave the experiment
Your social circle is made of people in your Gmail contact list, people you follow on twitter and (not so surprisingly) people you are connected with in FriendFeed.
I think it’s a very useful feature as I tend to trust my friends opinion more so than the general public.