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Google's two-way search is good for the web
By Dave Winer on Wednesday, February 03, 2010 at 11:46 AM.

A picture named wimpy.gifWIthout any fanfare as far as I can tell, Google has unveiled one of the most signficant, far-reaching and basically good features in its core search product.  permalink

Now, in addition to presenting the pages ranked in order of algorithmic importance, it also shows you what people you know have to say about the subject.  permalink

How does it know who you know? Based on some very simple information you may have entered into your Google profile. (I called this two-way search in July 2009.) permalink

For example, in my profile, I told it that I have a blog, am on Twitter, FriendFeed, run opml.org, have Flickr, Identi.ca, Picasa and YouTube accounts and OpenID. From there, it presumably either crawls or makes API calls to find out who I'm connected to and what I care about. There's a wealth of information about me just in the links on scripting.com.  permalink

So, when I search for "Michael Clayton" it includes results from my social circle. In this case it has a hit from Cody Brown who it knows (so they tell me) I know because I follow him on Twitter. permalink

It's good for the web because it puts all the social services on the same open playing field. If I want to add another service, I can put it in the list, and I can tell them how important it is to me by moving it up or down the list. It also makes sense for Google to throw its lot in with the web because they aren't Twitter or Facebook, and they got their start by indexing the open web. No matter what their motivations, that's for God to judge. Good is good. And good is not evil. <img src="> permalink

If you have an account on Google, you can edit your profile here. permalink

At first the results aren't blowing me away, but I expect over time they will get better.  permalink

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