There are two new additions to Google’s search results added within this last week that are worth telling you about.

In November, Google launched a new local recommendation engine powered by you and your friends. They key is that you’ll get opinions on hotels, restaurants, and more from the people you trust most. This past week, Google has integrated Hotpot within regular search results. If you or your friends are participating, when you’re logged into your Google account and search for a local place like [restaurant name boston], you’ll now received personalized search results combining your tastes as well as your friends’ recommendations. Your friends’ ratings will appear underneath the address of the establishment in the search results.

Read more here: www.google.com/hotpot

Secondly, you’ll notice that Google Instant is now incorporated in the shopping results for faster results. Wondering how Instant has succeeded in the web search results since September 2010? According to an interview with Fast Company (http://www.fastcompany.com/1723542/huge-results-for-google-instant-98-adoption-rate-only-2-opt-out), Ben Gomes, the lead engineer on Google Instant, reported the only 2% of users have opted out of Google Instant since its inception. He goes on to say that users are typing 5% fewer characters and reaching results 10% faster than a traditional search. Results are 4-5 seconds faster with the feature turned on.