Producing, Archiving and Searching Social Content

A computer-readable medium bearing computer-executable instructions which, when executed on a computing system comprising at least a processor executing instructions retrieved from the medium, carry out a method comprising:

• accessing a plurality of social communications;
• segmenting the social communications according to predetermined time periods;
• for each segment of social communications:
• associating the social communications of the segment with a plurality of topics concurrent with the predetermined time period of the segment;
• and
• determining a representative set of social communications for each of the plurality of topics from the social communications associated with each topic;
• and
• indexing and storing the representative set of communications for each of the plurality of topics in a content store according to the predetermined time period and the associated topic.

A computer-implemented search engine for responding to a search queries, the system comprising a processor and a memory, wherein the processor executes instructions stored in the memory as part of or in conjunction with additional components, the additional components comprising:

• a social communication processing component configured to:
• segment a plurality of social communications according to predetermined time periods;
• for each segment of social communications:
• associate the social communications of the segment with a plurality of topics of interest concurrent with the predetermined time period of the segment;
• and
• determine a representative set of social communications for each of the plurality of topics of interest from the social communications associated with each topic of interest;
• and
• index and store the representative set of social communications for each of the plurality of topics of interest in a content store according to the predetermined time period and the associated topic of interest.