The Graph Search Facebook announced on Tuesday combines the social graph with intent, and the result should frighten Yelp, LinkedIn and OK Cupid. But Google should feel just fine.
Facebook did not position its new Graph Search as a challenge to Google.
“We wouldn’t suggest people come and do web searches on Facebook, that’s not the intent," Mark Zuckerberg said at a launch event for Search product Tuesday.
And it's not. While it’s difficult to build a search product that doesn't compete with Google in some ways, perhaps more powerfully, Facebook's Graph Search can provide services from restaurant recommendations to dating-site-like matching.
The new feature makes it easy to search people, places, photos and interests as well as any combination of the four categories. Queries that might stump Google, such as, “photos taken in Berlin in 1989” or “friends of friends who like my favorite band and live in Palo Alto” or “Indian restaurants in Palo Alto that friends from India like” are easy for Facebook’s search graph.
Zuckerberg positioned the Facebook’s Search Graph as a place to find answers to questions, as opposed to web search, which is a place to find links that may answer questions. For answers that extend beyond Facebook’s database, such as the weather, Facebook Search Graph surfaces Bing’s results.
For the first time, Facebook is putting its social graph to work solving problems. Google+ is also an attempt to apply a social graph to a problem, but the problem is specific: finding the best search results for your query, which thereby attract the best advertisers.
Zuckerberg dodged questions about the monetization potential for Search Graph with his usual line: “Before we can start thinking about this as a business in a serious way, we have to continue focusing on building the user experience.”
But it’s easy to see the potential. Facebook is generally appealing to advertisers because it knows users’ interests and interactions. Now, on top of that, it could be likely to know what those same users are about to do. If they’re searching for restaurants, for instance, they’re probably going to eat out. It’s the same thing that makes Google a valuable advertising tool, and Facebook already has a sponsored search result product that monetizes it to some extent. But it doesn’t mean anything if users don’t actually use the service to solve their problems.
The problems Facebook social graph is good at solving are different than the problems Google is good at solving.
They are similar to those solved using LinkedIn. Just search “friends of friends who are product designers and work at Google.”
They are similar to those solved using Yelp. Just search “restaurants in Dublin liked by friends of friends who live in Dublin.”
They are similar to those solved using OKCupid. Just search “single friends of friends”.
They are even, in a small way, similar to those solved using Netflix. Just search “videos from TV shows my friends like.”
Your typical Google search, however--"Facebook headquarters map" -- will likely surface Bing results.
Whether Facebook Search Graph becomes Facebook’s biggest flop or most valuable asset depends on whether users will indeed use it to solve some of those problems or stick with their standbys.
The product has some limitations. It only will return results for data that is public or visible to you. If not many of your friends fill out their interest categories or have a “Liking” habit, your results might be thin. And if you’re trying to use the product as a Google replacement, it doesn’t make sense. Why search Facebook for the weather and get Bing results when you could just use Bing instead?
To be successful, Facebook Search graph needs to answer the questions that Google cannot -- and its users need to ask them.
Source : fastcompany[dot]com
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