Social Networking, Search Engine | featured news

The search giant says it inadvertently removed Digg, in its entirety, from its search engine... Digg, which bears little to no resemblance to the site it once was, is still alive and kicking as a curated collection of top news stories from around the Web -- just not in Google's world. If you queried Google for Digg links earlier this morning, you found that the search giant had no recollection that Digg ever existed. Seriously. As Martin MacDonald, an online marketing specialist, observed in a blog post, Digg disappeared altogether from Google's index.

Social networking giant Facebook unveils tools that lets users search through all the information their friends have shared.

Facebook is expected to announce something big on January 15 and here's at look at what it could be.

Facebook Inc CEO Mark Zuckerberg soothed investors in his first major public appearance since the No. 1 social network's rocky May IPO, breathing life into its struggling shares after hinting at new growth areas from mobile to search.

A report in the tech blog AllThingsD says Facebook and Yahoo have reached a deal that settles their patent squabbles and expands their licensing and advertising partnership.

Google+ has been called a "ghost town," a "little version of Facebook" and "dead" since its launch last year. Users have continually questioned what it is and why they would want to use it. Google's senior vice president of social business, Vic Gundotra, attempted to rebut critics' claims during a panel at South by Southwest on Friday and defended Google+ against allegations that users are fleeing a stagnant service. Traffic has declined more than 30 percent in the past four months, according to one estimate.

For Google, it's personal. The Internet search giant is no longer going to roll out the same search results to everyone... It's doing this in three ways. First, it's expanding search beyond public Web pages to the photos and posts you and others have shared privately. Second, as you type a person's name into Google, it will automatically suggest people you are close to or may be interested in. Third, Google is guiding users to profiles and Google+ pages related to the topic of interest.

With Google incessantly branching out into even more ventures such as music and social networking, its search business could continue to act as a minor Catch-22 situation in future by helping competition in other business lines.

Competition's all relative. Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL all compete for ad dollars, but they all agree that marketers ought to put their budgets into premium content, not search or social.

Google+ is being opened up for anyone to join after two-and-a-half months is closed testing.