It was a well-kept secret, by social media standards, but everyone who guessed "search" was right. At a press conference held at its Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters today, Mark Zuckerberg -- along with director of product Tom Stocky, and head of search Lars Rasmussen -- walked the audience through something called Graph Search.
This new functionality is currently in beta, and will be rolled out gradually -- although you're welcome to try a search jump or the waiting list.
Essentially, Graph Search seems to be a plain English search tool -- remember "Ask Jeeves"? -- which allows you to put specific queries to Facebook, deriving results from information that members, deliberately or by default, have made available to you. Anticipating outrage, Zuckerberg was quick to emphasize that Graph Search is "privacy-aware." It will only deliver search results based on content you are entitled to view.
Apparently, that was one of the main challenges facing developers. Ambitiously, it will return not just text-based results, but photos too. Results will automatically be tailored to individuals, because each member's "social graph" is distinct. (Graph Search will not exclude sponsored results.)
Whether this will prove more useful than web search remains to be seen. Subtract "personal results" from Google Search, for example, and the links returned in response to a query are blind to interests and preferences.
Arguably, this makes web search results more objective. Facebook would doubtless claim that personalizing results makes them more relevant and useful.
We need to see in more detail how Graph Search works in the wild, but it's likely to be of immediate interest to socially savvy businesses. Facebook instantly touted it as a new way to help people "discover your business." If members can search for a restaurant, or dentist, or dry cleaners their friends "Like," all the more reason to get your Facebook business page Liked by as many people as possible.
Will this give Google any sleepless nights? My first reaction is that when I search for something, I usually want to search well beyond the limits of my social circle's taste and knowledge. But it's too early to come to judgment: Let us know what you think.
Kim, - Precisely...one won't always discuss everything they know on facebook and similarly, there's a lot of uninformed discussion on facebook and simply because FB is social. Guesswork, Grapevine and all. i'd rather they had a system to match info in facebook with information from sources outside to return the most likely to be credible results.
I've never supported being restricted to ideas in a given circle even if it is of my friends. If i search i need to get as much information as i possible can from as diverse sources. This graph to me seems to lock in ideas like that. it is for the same reason that i disliked Google's regional search.
I love this feature. Instead of the anonymous search results provided by Google, or the haphazard casual mentions in regular Facebook...now we have a blend of social media and search! A search constrained or enhanced by personal experience!
I agree with you, I might use this new search engine to see which friend has gone to a particular restaurant, hotel, etc and maybe from there, start a new interaction to find out how was it.
I'm afraid people are going to be very afraid when 2007, 2008 pictures start coming up in searches! ("OMG I can't believe I wore those jeans", etc)
At first glance, this could be really useful for local searches of things like doctors and hospitals which have historically been difficult to get good ratings on via other search mechanisms. I'd say Facebook is competing more with services like Angie's List than Google, in a way, since it's using personal experience/provider reputation as part of the equation.
But is objectivity a real thing? It seems like it might be harder to game Facebook search than objective Google search. To game Facebook search, you'd have to pay off all my friends.
For some searches you want an objective result -- medical information, how to install an attic fan, and so forth.
For other searches, you might want that personal touch: Recommending local businesses, for example.
I also wonder about the impact this has on developments like machine-learning-enhanced search. This seems to be a quicky and dirty version of machine-learning, replacing the machine with "friends."
The proof of the pudding... I mean, there are things I know a lot about which you'd never know from my Facebook page. Just because I know about something doesn't mean I comment about it (or like it) on Facebook. So I am more impressed by "objective" search results. But let's wait and give it a try.
This is a huge challenge to Google. Unlike competitors like Bing, etc., which try to be like Google but better, or like Google but only a little different, Facebook is taking a different approach to search than Google does.
As Kim notes above: Google tells you what everybody thinks of something. Facebook tells you what your friends think. I can see both being valuable to consumers.
Will this be a Google-killer? Or at least will it take Google behind the garage and work it over with a rubber hose?
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