18.5. SOCIAL SEARCH

Social Search is a capability unique to SharePoint Server 2010 and FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint. SharePoint's profile and MySite capabilities are integrated with search to provide a search experience that combines traditional personal contact search with the best features of social networking. This allows the organization to begin identifying areas of expertise and locating the most active contributors of content and institutional knowledge.

18.5.1. People Search

Searching for people in organizations presents special challenges. In the past, solutions that provided People Search–like capabilities were nothing more than enhanced address books. The challenge for People Search (Figure 18-9) today is that users are accustomed to looking up people through social networks to gather much more than simple e-mail address and contact information. Today's social networks provide search users with visibility into people's activities, their expertise, and other information about the person. Organizations have struggled for years to find solutions that can offer the organization the same kinds of information the public social networks provide. SharePoint addresses all these challenges in its Social Search capabilities.