Search in context with social networks

About two weeks ago I came across this interesting article by Miguel Carrasco about what Microsoft should do to beat Google at search. It basically states that the next big leap in search will be made by adding context to increase the relevance of search results. I highly recommand the reading.

Context is provided by social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and others. By tapping in your social network, your search provider could know where you live, who your friends are, what are your interests and work field. These are all information that can be use to add relevance to search.

So for example, if my search provider knows I’m a tennis fan, searching for “US Open” should bring up results about the tennis competition and not the golfing one.

One annoyance I encounter on a daily basis is with Google Maps. I live in Montreal and I would say that about 95% of the queries I make are for addresses in Montreal. Shouldn’t Google know this and default all my searches to Montreal? Most of the time Google just gives me irrelevant results if I only specify a street address. Hopefully, the map searching providers will take advantage of the latest innovations made in Firefox 3.1 on geolocation to provide better search results based on my current location.

The big fear when it comes to integration of social networks with search services is privacy. Quite frankly, with hundreds of “friends” on Facebook and LinkedIn, I already have restricted the information that I share on these sites to a minimum. And are my address, interests and work related infos really private information? To me, these are all information I’m ready to trade in favor of better search results.