What are the opportunities and the future of social search?

The incumbents in social media are getting stale. There is room for disruption in the hierarchy of social media royalty. Statistics and extensive research has shown that social search and location-based platforms are the next big concept on web and mobile. Consumers are now looking for much more purposeful and engaging applications. Imagine you search for an Italian restaurant – the search engine recommends 10 places in your city that your neighbors and friends have visited, shows feedback from them, provides deals, and even allows you to ask specific questions about the restaurants. Once you decide on arestaurant, the search engine allows you to ask the restaurant representatives and customers’ questions or book a table. Afterwards, you can leave a review about your experience---all within the same window andefficiency of sending a text message or tweet.Social search is a form of Web search which is centered around the Social Graph of the person conducting the search. Social search is heading to a more purposeful, localized, and real-time route than ever before. Check out this presentation on the state of social media and beyond in 2013 from Social Media Week in NY: http://www.slideshare.net/NikkaUmil/smw-presentation-21349378

Adding very targeted social search options with advanced search (ie Google Advanced search): 1. By friend group (or type of friend or to distinguish between degrees or types of friendship/relationship) 2. By social network (FB, Linked in, Twitter, Google +, Quora, etc...) 3. By subject area expertise (probably a while off).  However, Linked Ins update may allow this a bit more 4. Geo-local friends (searching/asking all your friends in Austin or SF) More trust & reputation based cues. In fact, there has been decent amount of talk about the reputation graph.