Turning Search Into Questions and Storifying Feeds

The social software Bloomfire, has a couple of interesting features.

Blank Search Results are turned Into Questions
When someone searches for a term in a social software rather than display "no results" Bloomfire nudges the searcher to post a question about the search. The software then prompts appropriate people to answer that question. A bit like Quora.

Simple updates are combined into stories
It also has a feature to build stories out of the feeds in a social group. A bit like Storify. I see some innovative ideas emerging to tame the feed and make meaning out of it.

An update is not just a statement anymore
An update itself is starting to grow in importance and become a short story. A tweet or a Facebook post is not just an update anymore. It is starting to become a short story about something interesting you did at home or something meaningful you did at work. People always wrote stories. But the effort required to turn an interesting experience into an interesting story is becoming lesser and lesser. Facebook already refers to every update as stories. I will write about it more in a later post.