Why is this important? It means that the power of information flow has changed. For the 1st time ever the consumer has an impact into search results and it will be big. Will this day be remembered as historic it should be the right to freedom of speech just went into effect with the largest communication tool made by man.

Social Search to Serve Results Based On Time, Authority. Expect real time data to merge with existing search engines, as a result we should see Google Search and Bing to serve up search results based on: 1) Real time information based on what Twitter users are saying, including memes from trending topics, 2) Preference given to links and URLs that are tweeted by users with more followers or authority, 3) Geo location of tweets to influence search results. As users seek “Thai Restaurants in San Mateo” location based tweets could provide additional context. 4) Eventually results will be served up by your friends. Google has given a nod to serve up information based on your social graph (your friends) using Google Profile. (Source- Altimeter Group)

What does this mean? As a business you have lost some control over your search results and I believe over a very short time more and more the results will go with real-time information over present search algorithms. The areas that are going to be impacted in your business ecosystem is going to be marketing, and competitive strategies at first.

The big picture here is Social is now going to gain speed with its invasion of every businesses ecosystem.

The moves that are happening in the SEO businesses where more and more companies are adding Social Media into their portfolios are evident now and will speed up. The PR companies are redesigning their businesses. Marketing firms are running as fast as they can to implement it into their mix and are now working it into a top slot into their offerings.
New terms are being made more prominent and they start with Social in them- just put social in front of news, media, CRM, networking, bookmarking, ecosystem, etc. I know I have left out even more.

Implications- the companies that now see this clearly are redesigning their businesses for this future. It even has a name and it is called Social Business Design.

Where to start?

1. Listening Software and Dashboards for your business.
2.Marketing messages will not work the same, focus will shift to User generated content that is shared heavily and will show up in the search thru popularity.
3. Communities will be more important, businesses will have to build them.
4.RT, @ replies and influencer's will need to be taken into messaging strategy and Word of mouth and linking sharing strategies.
5.Think people centric and not page centric. Think custom search results pages based off the influence from their friends.
6.Think Smaller, relationship based marketing.
7.Think about Legacy Marketing methods are not only ineffective, they can be downright counterproductive.(cause your market to tune you out and with technology just not hear or see you- think TIVO for TV, new tools are being developed now for the web to do similar things.

Future Implications
1.Pay attention to companies that are going to build out a system that will score influencer's rankings.
2.Smaller specialized communities will have greater influencer.

So the big takeaway- it is not going to be all about the tools and tactics- they will change as fast as yesterday and something that will always be the competitive advantage to the best implementers. It is the big changes at the top level of redefining the whole of your business into this new world.