Site icon John Battelle's Search Blog

Finding your search buddies

There’s a new social service that pairs search users in part by their similar queries, as well as pages visited in web browsing and preferred interests. Others Online stands out from many social sites with its browser toolbar that when activated passively records demonstrated interests.

While a user is browsing they can check the Others toolbar to see who else is reading or interested in the topic or site, and a dropdown provides contact to their IM or email details—including a link to their MySpace profile or other social website.

So what this means is…. Every time you search Google, you see the people who relate to those same keywords, plus their Web pages, and you can connect with them instantly by IM or email.

There aren’t too many details on the site on how they track and weight users’ online movements, but it seems to cache much like Google Toolbar and feed users’ background profiles by keyword and url. Although one can clear their search cache, there’s no option to selectively delete.

Others Online will run contextual ads–based of course on its users web history–and says it offers companies a chance to build brand by retaining contact even when users have clicked away. via

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