Is Facebook's New Patent Going To Take Down Google? Apparently So

[morestar]

Interesting news coming out of SearchEngineLand.com regarding Facebook and their Patent on Social Search which indicates that in February of 2011, Facebook was awarded a patent on social search by the United States Patent and Trademark Office USPTO.

Here's a snippet from the patent that obviously seemed to be the most interesting:

Search results, including sponsored links and algorithmic search results, are generated in response to a query, and are marked based on frequency of clicks on the search results by members of social network who are within a predetermined degree of separation from the member who submitted the query. The markers are visual tags and comprise either a text string or an image.

The actual name of the patent is "Visual tags for search results generated from social network information."

As the author of the article mentions in his post-script, it's hard to determine if the patent covers clicks and activities only on Facebook or on the web in general.

If it's the web in general what could this mean for Google and BING or any other search engine out there? Is a war about to start? Was Facebook sneaky handed when it applied for this patent in 2004?

Are their any patent or legal specialist that could shed some light on the ramifications of this new development in social search?

Now, on the flip side, Google has also released what is being touted as a Facebook Killer with it's new Social Circles network.

What's going to happen here everyone? Who's going to win the social search and social circle game?

[AciveLite2k]

If i'm not mistaken, as of October 2009 method patents can now be argued in court, and can be nullified... Patents must be must be tied to a physical mechanism to be 100% valid.. Business and method patents don't hold up... It's just used to bully smaller companies now that don't know any better... I would check with an attorney regarding this...

[Steiner]

sounds like a patent for an algorithm; how could search be patented at this stage of its development?

[snakeman]

Steiner, yes I'd say you are correct - a patent for an algorith rather than a concept.
On that basis I see no major changes to the search landscape arising from this patent.
What surprises me (constantly) is that noting how Google literally controls the web via it's dominance in search and the advertising it carries and how no other major company has taken the fight to them.
Microsoft's efforts have been abysmal and everyone else seems to be sleeping on the job!

[xmachinecorex]

hopefully they both kill eachother off.

they just had this whole craze over google+ and now google circles?

what next? a googlebot in our own living room? how about a facebook television

lol oh and about the name "google circles" - yes they certainly like keeping you all running in circles don't they

what will be the next big thing that every website and business has to slap a link on their website too or else their business will fade away.... be sure to put those links on your websites as quickly as possible....pass the entire worlds link juice to the corporations while they nofollow your website in return.

c'mon everyone what are you waiting for...google circles needs their viral boost from you guys...they will never make it without you

[morestar]

what will be the next big thing that every website and business has to slap a link on their website too or else their business will fade away.... be sure to put those links on your websites as quickly as possible....pass the entire worlds link juice to the corporations while they nofollow your website in return.

Interestingly enough, I've found that some of the websites I setup for blogging/SEO purposes in which I don't add social share buttons, don't add SEO plugins, and don't really optimize much gain power pretty quickly.

Yes it may be that only results taken from content and such from people in your circles is what we'll be left with but I can't see Google completely reducing their search result to a ghost town any time soon.

[snakeman]

This idea of social search I think is a load of XXXX.
It's been tried to a limited extent by google and people don't buy it!
Sure people like to have friends and the like, but when searching for plumbers or whatever on the web, webpages visited by people you know
is probably meaningless. This is especially so, when facebook and the like allow people to collect thousands of "friends" you may not even know!
In summary, I don't expect facebook's newest patent to be doing any major damage to google yet!
BUT where I see the next big battle on the web will be between IP owners, bootleggers and the search engines in the middle!
All the best