Social networks are voluntary, opt-in communities. Because they attract willing participants to a virtual setting, social networks coalesce largely around common interests rather than particular factors, such as location, gender, age, ethnicity, or occupation. When users encounter content within virtual social networks, they are “pre-qualified” for it and more likely to trust that it is more relevant to their interests than any content that appeared in their most recent search engine query. If a friend sends me a link or simply posts one to a social network profile, I am much more likely to consider it a recommendation worth following up with than one of the millions that return in search engine results. While this may not affect the fact-checking or “look up” power of search engines at the present time, top engines like Google know their days of search preeminence are numbered. Their Social Searchexperiment, which delivers results pulled from your specific social network within their algorithm-generated results, is indicative of their recognition that trust is central to the way people find and engage with content. People trust people and people act upon trust.
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