Social search: useful tool or time waster ? Karen Blakeman, http://www.rba.co.uk/ Internet Librarian International, L

1. Social search: useful tool or time waster ? Karen Blakeman, http://www.rba.co.uk/Internet Librarian International, London, 15th-16th October 2009 Photo: Google Street View This presentation is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License Karen Blakeman www.rba.co.uk

2. Why social search? • Publican hiring bar staff using Facebook to pre-screen candidates • Student used YouTube to find information on the life cycle of the Duck Billed Platypus for an essay • Business students assignment on advertising history of Cadbury’s Crème Egg and Dairy Milk – Youtube • Conference speaker used Twitter and Facebook to find a Norwegian translator for his presentation • Essential part of reputation monitoring for all organisations • Essential when researching organisations, competitors, etc • What’s happening at Internet Librarian International?! Karen Blakeman www.rba.co.uk

3. Karen Blakeman www.rba.co.uk

4. Google Caffeine http://www.comparecaffeine.com/ Karen Blakeman www.rba.co.uk

5. Google “Show options” Karen Blakeman www.rba.co.uk

6. Firefox - customise Google results Karen Blakeman www.rba.co.uk

7. Yahoo! • http://www.yahoo.co.uk/ • http://search.yahoo.co.uk/http://search.yahoo.com/ • May start using Bing web search next year • Now includes options to limit search to selected networking sites Karen Blakeman www.rba.co.uk

8. 123People.com • Searches • image sections of major search engines • Flickr • Facebook • MySpace • LinkedIn • blogs • web • videos • news Karen Blakeman www.rba.co.uk

9. The People Search Engine – Whoozy.com Karen Blakeman www.rba.co.uk

10. Do social media, “real-time” search tools work? • Phil Bradley’s blog for examples and reviews • http://philbradley.typepad.com/ • Here today and gone tomorrow • Don’t always work on all of the services they claim to cover • Superficial coverage • but you may only need a quick overview • For serious research learn how to use individual, specialist search tools or search the service itself Karen Blakeman www.rba.co.uk

11. For example: searching Twitter and tweets • Searching public tweets • http://search.twitter.com/, http://www.twazzup.com/ • Google advanced web search and use site search on twitter.com • Use your Twitter client on your desktop, laptop, mobile, iphone • e.g. Tweetdeck, Seesmic • Review: 8 free Twitter clients for better tweeting • http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9138067/Review_8_free_Twitter_clients_for_better_tweeting?taxonomyId=16&pageNumber=2 • Tweepz.com - Twitter People • Phil Bradley's weblog: Twitter Search - 20 alternative search engines • http://philbradley.typepad.com/phil_bradleys_weblog/2009/03/twitter-search-20-alternative-search-engines.html Karen Blakeman www.rba.co.uk

12. Potential drawbacks • Users may not appreciate limitations of social media and electronic information in general • Assumption that today’s technologies have been around for ever • original TV coverage of the storming of the Bastille • podcast of Abraham Lincoln delivering the Gettysburg address • photo of the baby Jesus with Joseph and Mary • Accuracy and authority of information • mis-information, intentional or accidental has always existed • social networks/web 2 can correct wrong information • Twitter campaign to correct mis-reporting by UK newspaper on cervical cancer vaccination and death of a teenager Karen Blakeman www.rba.co.uk

13. Social search: useful tool or time waster? • You go to where the conversations are, where the chat is, where the buzz is • It is where people feel comfortable asking questions and sharing information • It is where an increasing proportion of the population grew up • You can’t ‘gag’ social networks • BBC NEWS | Politics | When is a secret not a secret? • http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8304908.stm For serious research, social search and Web 2.0 are not optional extras - they are an essential part of a search strategy Karen Blakeman www.rba.co.uk