• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, November 5, 2010

Imagine having one log-in for all social sites so when searches are done in an engine the results pull in content and preferences from sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Digg. As search engines pull in social signals from the underbelly of the Web, personalized query results might be more accurately predictive than those of Google Instant.

Digg CEO Matt Williams believes search and social will become far more personal. "Search will become a predictive browsing function," he says. While there will always be a need for search, his 12 years of experience at Amazon.com suggests that search will have a filter -- social -- making it easier to bring the lens into focus, although he realizes it will take time before search and discovery through the social graph merge.

On Web sites, at least, Williams says search and social will make the act of searching unnecessary. As social activities in a searcher's network of friends become more open through APIs, he believes social signals in search will have more influence in ads and content served up.

Facebook instant personalization gives some level of access to social graph information for those logged in, so pulling in information would be a personalized and targeted approach.

Williams doesn't know to what extent Digg would share social signals. That would depend on a variety of factors ranging from benefits to diggers, other sites, and the ability to set up a privacy dashboard allowing community members to control settings. "I see a future where information is shared overall throughout the industry, but also see common standards to protect consumer privacy through some sort of dashboard," he says. "The future is much more open than it is today. Amazon has done it for years."

Amazon has been doing it for years -- personalizing content it serves up to those who frequent the site. It combines information about the searcher and friends to serve up suggestions and content. Providing a similar feature across the Web and sharing information from someone's social graph simply combines search and social on a much larger scale.

It's a far-reaching view for the combination of search and social, but the path could lead to the turnaround of Digg and put the company back in the black by mid-year 2011. In October Digg lost a good portion of its staff, including its chief revenue officer Chas Edwards.

Williams says the company had a burn rate "way too high," but always had a good revenue stream and ad base. The path to profitability is based on the company's revenue today and curbing costs. Turning Digg into a "great company again" will require it to listen closely to users. "It's really where we missed the mark in the last launch of Digg," he says.

So Digg will re-engage with the community, build a more personalized experience around news communities, and expand on the company's ad products. The Digg community believes the site missed the mark by taking away their voice, according to Matthews. There wasn't as much recognition when users submitted articles. The site took auto-submissions from publishers and removed the "bury" button and created a "hide" feature, which fostered confusion. The whole mess brought on discontent, he says.