Because of the digital trend toward the social aspect of the web, it is natural there would be applications to help you search and track information on the social web. 48ers is one of those.
On a Personal basis
For the everyday Joe, there are a few benefits to a social search engine like 48ers. One of the most popular reasons for using this type of search is for researching a product you’d like to purchase. You can enter in a product name and see what people are currently saying about that product. Sure you can go onto Twitter and search there or ask the people who follow you what they think, then head over to Facebook and post a question there, then mozy on over to Google Buzz and do the same thing. It is much easier to do it all in one search. Plus you will be searching other sites along with the 3 big name sites.
From Business point of view
Businesses are using social search engines for much more than being social. It is life or death these days to know what people are saying about you. More so than when you were the popular kid in high school. Being able to search multiple sites at the same time is a real time saver for businesses taking social media and their online presence seriously. Tracking a hastag for an event, a brand, product or anything else is much easier when you can search multiple sites simultaneously.
What makes 48ers cool
If you are one of the 80% of the Googlers out there, you will see a striking similarity to your favorite search engine. The simplicity makes it feel like home when you are searching the social web.
In the left sidebar, you will see the sites 48ers is pulling results from. If you would like to filter your results you can do so by clicking on the site you want to see the results from. When filtering the results, you can only see one site at a time.
I really like how they have a “Useful Searches” section in the sidebar. There are some searches in there that are kind of “ah-ha moment” searches. I mean, they make complete sense when you see them, yet you didn’t think to search for.
What site is the result from?
When you perform a search for any term, you can see the logo of the social site at the beginning of each result in the list. Results from social bookmarking sites don’t always show a logo because they aren’t from a social site like Twitter.
Overall, there isn’t a lot to show with a search engine. Even though there is a lot of potential uses for a social search engine, everyone will use it differently. Play around a little and try different search types. Use the filters, try the suggested searches to see what you come up with. The social web is not an exact science even though many people claim to know it all. Spend the time getting to know the basics and the rest of the time searching for and talking to people with similar interests. That’s what the whole social thing is all about. What do you use social search engines for?
