Me.dium launches social approach to search

What if a search engine could be powered by people, and not just by links and content? A new system launched this month by Me.dium is testing the water.

by Helen Leggatt

medium%20logo.jpg Social network Me.dium is putting the power of its people into a new social search system. The search tool will combine the new Yahoo Search BOSS platform with results collected from Me.dium social sidebars and toolbars.

The toolbars are used by participants to share and endorse websites with others within the network, much like StumbleUpon, from which data Me.dium can rank sites based on popularity. Current figures put the number of URLs shared each day by Me.dium users at over 20 million.

As well as popularity, or crowd rank, website content will also be ranked using crowd level, recent activity and average visit duration. This information is then wrapped around the Yahoo search results.

The move should see social media websites being healthily represented in results returned by the social media search tool. More blogs and news articles will appear in the top results and more up-to-the minute content will be displayed based on what people are looking at in that moment in time, and being constantly updated in real-time.

"Me.dium's Social Search gives you a new and unique layer of information that was never available before," said Kimbal Musk, CEO of Me.dium. "Using the activity of our community and our real time technology platform, users see search results ranked by what the crowds are surfing right now."