Let’s figure this out: a Facebook app for search keywords
Written on June 29, 2008 – 12:25 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
In March I covered AndUnite, a service that matches your search keywords with those from other people - to help you find folks with similar interests. Although this idea may sound kind of awkward, I felt - and still feel - that Bernd Storm van‘s Gravesande and Christian Schmidkonz had developed a useful search plugin. You don’t need to tag, bookmark, or anything in that direction, AndUnite just works in the background, slowly but steadily connecting you to interesting people. Very 3.0. Moreover, it’s possible to sign up anonymously - so they’re hardly any privacy issues involved. But now, these two German gentlemen have taken it a step too far for me.
They’ve developed a Facebook application that allows you to share your searches. This was, apparently, a “major request by many users’. But why? Why would you want to share these - mostly boring or private - keywords on your Facebook profile. That’s what I want to figure out with you. Please tell me why you would, or wouldn’t, want to install this app.
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By Wouter on Jun 30, 2008
I can imagine wanting to share this with other people, albeit for a select group of people. I wouldn’t do this personally because some of the terms I’m searching on are either private or not of interest.
By Sander on Jun 30, 2008
I can’t think of any reason why I would like to to do this. Matching on search keywords sounds strange, but might deliver interesting people (like Amazon does with books). But sharing all your search queries is a step to far for me.
When I share something on del.icio.us, twitter, flickr, I have control. I choose to share it. It doesn’t inflict my privacy in any way. You can of-course choose to share your search queries, but I don’t expect it do deliver much value to my friends or to myself. And I would have think ‘do I want to share this?’ with every search. A no-go for me.
By T. Sterling on Jul 2, 2008
I am quite optimistic about andUNITE. I think their social search approach will be pretty successful. they just need time to improve their app. I would wish more functionality like Web History from Google.
@ Wouters: Invite your best friend and try out andUNITE. you will see, that you will have many interesting, funny and sometimes problem solving moments. It can be fun and it can be very useful, if search engines let you down.
@ Sander: you can use andUNITE as a private search diary - so you do not have to think every time you search.