This article was published on May 8th, 2012
Just when we thought we had it all covered, comes the unexpected which of course proves one thing above everything else:
In the Internet World, always expect…
… the unexpected.
Indeed…
A New Search Engine has been created to serve results from searches based on social media content!
Indeed, an Israeli-American company, JULPAN, recently acquired by Twitter, the social networking giant is reportedly able to sort information available on social networks and transform it into useful and relevant information to users.
The goal of Julpan is to access the thousands of social activities across tweets, Facebook likes and RSS feeds, and sort them in order to provide relevant content. And all this gathering of information is done live so that what you say on Twitter, whom you like on Facebook, and what your RSS feed includes will be immediately compiled to join others in your social network neighborhood (and theirs) to formulate search results that will reflect your own opinion and actions.
Pretty cool no?
Says Ori Allon, the founder of this project:
“By looking at what links you share, what people you communicate with publicly, and what topics you often talk about, our engine is able to tell whether you’re a foodie that loves pasta, a soccer fan that loves FC Barcelona, or a passionate musician that loves The Beatles.”
Allon is not a newcomer to internet search though. After completing a Ph.D., he developed a search algorithm called Orion, which Google duly purchased.
“The algorithm tried to track the most relevant pages for the search term, not by popular measures like the number of links a page has, but by its content,” Allon told Israeli website Calcalist. “For example, by searching ’4th of July’ you get results about fireworks and concerts – things that people say and mean in the context of the American independence day.”
After leaving the Search Engine giant, Allon founded Julpan, and his project is due to be launched in the new few months.
“Nowadays, people share so much information on social networks,” says Allon. “We do something similar to what Google has done in the search field, but in social media. For example, you can search Julpan for a restaurant, event or anything that happens today and get amazing results. The source is other users’ content, so the information available can’t be found anywhere else.”
Rather than a search engine, Allon views his product as a discovery engine. Indeed the search may not necessarily be in the traditional form of a search string (one or more words) but can be a current location, what you did minutes ago, which program you were watching on TV, or a chat with friends….
“Based on the information available on [Twitter] we can know where you are and what you and your friends wrote in the last hour,” says Allon. “The beauty of this technology is that it is based on context of your location and activities. The most important thing for us is to understand the relationship between the user activity and bringing him information that is relevant for him at that moment.”
Here is an example of what the social media search engine can do:
“A few weeks ago, Katy Perry signed albums a few blocks from our office. We knew that because many people that normally don’t mention her started mentioning her, her location, and what she’s doing now. That immediate information cannot be retrieved by any other service. It’s a great way for tourists and locals to find out about interesting things that happen right now in their area.”
According to the developer, no one has yet developed a similar product because “The information is out there but no one yet took it and tried to make it useful. Facebook and Twitter have the information but not the means. Google has the analytics abilities but not the information…”
And talking about Google, according to Allon: “if Google had Facebook’s information we would have seen amazing things. That’s the main reason they launched Google+.”
Are you frightened yet?
🙂