Next up in our ‘Top Picks’ for 2009', (Geek style) is the world of patents. If there is one area that continues to heat up is the behavioural data world. From all of the Big 3(?) we noticed a definite trend to seeing more on implicit/explicit user feedback.

This one is for the patents coming from the folks at Google… Beyond the behavioural stuff, we also noticed an up-tick in patents relating to Geo-local and Universal search elements. Which of course does seem to be much of what Google is going after these days (personal, geo, universal).

Who knew watching patents could foretell the future?

Google Search Patents from 2009

Now that Google has launched its Social Search, where do we stand? Is it a brave new world of search? Is the sky falling? Well, that’s what we’re going to find out – SOSG Style…. Of course. For starters, if you haven’t already, you can join at google.com/experimental - Next let’s get past the basics with a quick review. Over at the Google blog the most notable statement (for this geek) was;

“We've taken steps to improve the relevance of our search results with personalization, but today's launch takes that one step further.” Google Blog

Let’s keep that in mind. This as much a personalization than anything, but you knew that from last time right? Of course, you’re so damn clever, that’s what I like about ya!

Essentially the system collects contacts/info from;

1. Google Profile (and the sites you’ve listed; blogs, social etc..)
2. Google Contacts/Gtalk (friends/family/etc.. and Gtalk peeps)
3. Google Reader ( the blogs/sites you follow)

This also can include secondary contacts (friend of a friend) and essentially now becomes a recommendation engine to serve up potentially relevant content from your networks.

I thought it interesting that in Matt’s video he refers to it as a ‘Social Graph’ which obviously brings back visions of the Google Social Graph API we’ve been talking about the last while.

We’ve almost got the whole collection…woo hoo!

Ok sure, there are those that called me a total SOSG for getting excited about the patent awarded to Google yesterday, but there is goodiness for every SEO really. Granted it may be a bit geeky, but it is still somoething that needs more consideration in the SEO space... You see my friends, it has always been an odd thing that people in the business can go on and on about Google and LSI (total DUH…). I have seen nothing in Google research papers or patents that relate to it…

On the other hand, we know of at least 9 patents on another semantic analysis approach… namely; Phrase Based IR…

Finding link spam via search marketing Forums

OK, sure… the title is a bit egregious, but in many ways so is the patent that came out from the folks at Microsoft last week. As I was perusing my feed reader on Thursday I noticed a patent that DEFINITELY caught my attention (and I even laughed a bunch too..);

Forum Mining for Suspicious Link Spam Sites Detection - Microsoft - Filed; Feb. 06 2008 – Assigned; Aug. 06 2009