From what television shows to watch to what products to buy, we consistently look to our friends and peers for their trusted opinions and recommendations. As the web gets more social through communities on platforms like Facebook and Twitter, shouldn’t our searches reflect these increasingly meaningful connections too?

While the move is on to develop the algorithm that will make this idea a reality and no doubt revolutionize the way we consume our stream of information in process, what might the search look like and how will it function exactly? ReadWriteWeb provides an excellent analysis of how our future searches will function based on what they refer to as “Social Relevancy Rank,” a constantly updating feed of data filtered through the people in our trusted networks.

Based on this model, the most relevant information would come directly from your closest (online) friends and then move downward through a progression of an ever widening web of affiliations – taste neighbors to friends of friends to influencers – until it final reaches results from the crowd.

If it works, it would create an entirely new level of value to our time spent online and one imagines would most benefit the relatively small (but growing) community of creators – thought leaders, bloggers, designers etc. – who are actively engaging with the web at large. If such an engine were to take hold it will be interesting to see how the information reordering takes shape, particularly when it comes to corporations and to a lesser extent traditional media outlets.