Facebook, Twitter and MySpace engineers have developed a browser plug-in that helps you skirt the horrible intrusion that is Google’s new Search Plus Your World. It should send a pretty clear message: it’s called “Don’t Be Evil”.
The tool, actually a bookmarklet, is available from the Focus On The User website. It was created by a team of engineers from numerous social networking sites — though only Facebook, Twitter and MySpace are named.
These three companies all feel aggrieved by Google’s new search system, claiming that it attenuates their importance in search results. But the bookmarklet they’ve written lets you compare what the new results look like compared to good old-fashioned Google search. The creators say:
“We wanted to see how much better social search could be for consumers if Google chose to use all of the information already in its index. We think the results speak for themselves. All of the information in this demo comes from Google itself, and all of the ranking decisions are made by Google’s own algorithms. No other services or APIs are accessed.”
The video above pretty clearly demonstrates the stark deference between vanilla Google and its Search Plus Your World. How long before we see a backtrack? [Focus On The User via Search Engine Land]