SearchTogether is a project from Microsoft Research which features include group query histories, split searching, page-level rating and commenting, automatically-generated shared summaries, peek-and-follow browsing, and integrated chat. It works as an Internet Explorer plug-in and requires a Windows Live ID. You would think it just works with Live Search. But no, it supports Google and Yahoo as well. Although it’s collaborative search, you can only see the queries that your friend is searching and see the same results, or comment on it. Chat is also available but it’s rather slow, it takes a while for the message to deliver after you press send.
The collaboration isn’t just limited to 2 people, and from what I see there’s not limit on the number of people you can add to a search session. On it’s project page, the requirement is Internet Explorer 7, but I use the plug-in on Windows 7 build 7057, and it worked just fine apart from a the exceptions it threw when using search in the split mode. 
It’s a very interesting concept and can be used for research, group assignments and social networking. I have a feeling there might be a similar plug-in for Firefox as well. But if you want to give SearchTogether a try, download it here. An extensive tutorial is also available to get you started.
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