The core difference between search and social

Interesting column from John Gapper in the FT today. Here he’s talking about Jonah Peretti, founder of Buzzfeed:

His insight was that sharing works differently from search. Search is a way to discover information, whereas sharing is prompted by emotion. People read all kinds of material but they mostly share stories or videos that create positive reactions, such as laughter; or actively negative ones, such as anger.

Well worth a read – even registering to read – if only to get to the final line, with which I heartily concur.

(Full disclosure: I worked on a project for the FT over the summer, alongside Neil Perkin and eConsultancy)