Businessweek is reporting that Microsoft is in talks to buy or forge a partnership with Eurekster.com, specializing in social-network search.

Eurekster has two existing and six pending patents covering everything from how a search engine can learn from user behavior to how it can utilize collaboration among users to drive search results.

An MSN manager has also confirmed that Microsoft plans to unveil a question-and-answer social-search tool in the coming months. The feature will let users direct questions to a specific universe, such as a group of friends, rather than to get automated lists of results from a generic search engine.