The Steve Rubel Stream

Google has made a small tweak to its real-time search tools, which scours Twitter, Friendfeed and public Facebook status updates. Now when you search for any keyword and refine your search results to either "recent" or "updates," the search engine will also extract the most cited links for that particular keyword.

Here is an example (see above images). A status update search for Tiger Woods pulls up recent tweets on the left and "top links" on the right. If you click any "all mentions" link this pulls up related status updates pointing to that particular URL. This can be invoked for any URL with a simple "link:" command and I imagine it would be a snap to create a bookmarklet to execute such a search against any web URL.

I have always felt that Google is the company to beat in real-time search and this is another example of how they're going to continually enhancing their feature set. Good stuff.

This morning I logged into YouTube and I noticed that it now helps me find me find videos and channels from friends who have linked their Google contact information to their social profiles. Meanwhile yesterday Google rolled out its social search program (which so far I like). And recently Google Reader too became a lot more social. So the Gmail address book/contact list is finally showing that it can be a powerful tool for connecting you to your social connections. This is something we saw coming.

"However, on the whole, social networks are becoming a key way for people to find content that's meaningful to them. In response, all of the major networks are building out search tools that could, conceivably, threaten Google."

   

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Friendfeed_Brings_Best_of_Day_.zip (756 KB)

One of my favorite Friendfeed features is called "Best of Day." I use it all the time to hone in on the most liked/commented conversations. If you're logged into Friendfeed, you can hit this link to see the most interesting conversations from your friends over the last 24 hours or this one for the past seven days. The problem with the feature, however, is that it only worked across all of your friends. This can be problematic if you follow hundreds of people, as I do.

Last night, however, Friendfeed quietly added a killer feature that brings "Best of Day" to lists - groupings of friends you categorize. Now you can more easily spot trends from friends. The screen grab below shows you the most interesting items over the last month just within my "favorites" list. This smart filtering of content plus the recent addition of real-time search on Friendfeed is exactly what those of us who participate in the social web need.

This incremental innovation gives me just another reason to be excited about Friendfeed. It's also why I love Gmail, Posterous and Evernote. They constantly keep innovating all the time even through the tough times.