Long Way Round

Some of the paper's outlines are showcased in Aardvark's blog, which highlights the difference between the "library" paradigm to search, which is Google searching through already generated webpages, and the "village" paradigm to search, which relies on answers generated at the moment of query. The "village" paradigm, as employed by Aardvark and according to its paper, allows users to use natural language instead of keywords, content is generated on-demand, and the system is fueled by the goodwill of the users (the most social aspect of it all in my opinion).

Further, the success of Aardvark largely relies on the users that actually deliver the answers to queries and thereby provide content. For Google, the point is to have excellent search capabilities through indexing and crawling the web, but for Aardvark, it relies on its network of users and their knowledge, as well as their "enthusiasm" to share their knowledge when someone else is requesting it. In short, it heavily relies upon social relationships for data. It is a human search engine.

My main point of this writing is to say that social search seems to be where the future is headed. Now more than ever, people rely on Facebook (what do my friends think about the movie Avatar?), Twitter (what is going on in Haiti?), and Yelp (is French Laundry that good?) to get their information. If I want to know whether Shanghai Dumpling King is indeed a restaurant worth going to, I'll Yelp it rather than Google it. If I want to see if I can get a road bike for under $500, I'll use Aardvark rather than a traditional search engine. There's many more illustrations of a move towards social search beyond the few I've mentioned here.

So is social search the future? it seems more likely every day.