Figuring out social connections between pieces of content is fundamentally different from the one that has ruled for a decade. Google mathematically indexes the Web by scanning hyperlinks between pages and websites. Pages with lots of links from other sites rise to the top of search results on based on Googles PageRank algorithm.
Social indexing is far less able to be manipulated than linking structures. Some think of social indexing as social tagging or social bookmarking in which you bookmark your favorite websites, popular blog posts, or news alerts. We need to move far beyond that as “likes” can be bought and are not necessarily any more authoritative than a link.
The social index will be a complete replacement for Google search, including many types of activity— like researching products, entertainment, where to eat, etc. The majority of the social index will be influenced by the mobile web. Proximity will be a social cue for the index base on friends and venues near each other.
The purpose of indexing is to create metadata that facilitates organization and access of information. This metadata can be created by information professionals, authors, and users. User-based indexing is dialogic, allowing users to add their own tags to documents, whether text, music, or images. The next evolution will revolve around mobile devices.
Retailers already trace your movements. Every smartphone comes with WiFi. When on and looking for networks to join, it’s detectable by local routers. In a retail environment they can learn your device’s unique ID use it to keep tabs on that device over time as you move through the store.
People Rank is too simplistic a view and social capital has yet to be fully realized as a ranking metric (think Klout). Global connections to data and results in a social index where you find every intersection between you and someone you know and their proclivities is soon upon us.