Google search embraces Facebook-style news feed model

SAN FRANCISCO: Years ago, Google built a social network separate from its prized asset, web search. The effort failed. Now the company is trying again -- only this time, it’s turning its search engine into something that looks a lot like the news feed of a social network.

The Alphabet Inc unit is introducing a tailored feed of news, entertainment and myriad web content based on users’ searches, YouTube video views and other personal information. It’s an expansion of an older mobile service called Google Now. Yet some new bells and whistles –information from local trends and an ability to “follow” public figures, for instance – give Google’s search feed a similar feel to the algorithmic stream of Facebook Inc’s News Feed.

That feature has helped Facebook capture online attention like few other companies.

“We want people to understand they’re consuming information from Google,” Sashi Thakur, a Google engineering vice president, told reporters. “It will just be without a query.” Google has long been interested in making search more personal and proactive. When users are logged into their Google accounts, search results are already heavily personalized. Google Now attempted to provide similar relevant information like sports scores and driving directions before people typed queries, but it hasn’t been as popular as other services from the company, such as traditional search, Maps and the Chrome browser. The new, predictive search feed will get a lot more exposure because it will stream on the launch page of Google’s namesake mobile app on Android and Apple Inc mobile devices beginning yesterday. — Bloomberg