Facebook Announces A New Relationship-Based Search System!
While it remains debatable as to whether or not the online world is ready for it… Facebook’s newest announcement may forever (eventually) reshape the way we think of online search!
Much in keeping with Google’s moves towards contextual search, Facebook has finally begun to leverage it’s massive infrastructure known as Open Graph in a way that lets it produce search results that no other system yet provides as fully…
Introducing Facebook Graph Search!
video property of Facebook, Inc.
Powerful stuff with a very human touch!
What role does Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder, feel Graph Search plays?
video property of Facebook, Inc.
While Graph Search is not yet a part of all of our accounts, The Verge has a useful walk through of the new system
As you can see… quite a bit of interesting data is available about your friends, colleagues, peers and associates!
So the sanest question we can ask is…. what about privacy rules?
Fortunately, according to Facebook, the search results honor all existing privacy rules and do not add any new privacy settings that you might need to opt into: https://www.facebook.com/about/graphsearch/privacy
However, as Leonie Smith points out… that doesn’t mean that there still aren’t some safety concerns you should consider.
All Things D has raised the very valid point that Facebook entering the search market will actually relieve many of the anti-trust pressures on Google. Since Facebook feels there is enough room to enter and compete in search, it will be harder for the claim to be made that Google has unfairly commandeered the market place. They write, “Facebook’s notion of search — which ends in people and pictures and recommendations — lends credence to Google’s defense that modern search is about answers to questions, not simple links to Web pages.”
Want to learn more about Graph Search or get on the Beta Waiting List? Click here.
It will actually be interesting to see if Facebook has released a product that is now ahead of it’s time. While immensely powerful, the time needed for individuals to begin to even consider that they can search in this particular manner may probe interesting to watch. Also, the tools biggest potential – but also the biggest hurdle – will be mobile which we have yet to see how it will handle.
What do you think about this new announcement from Facebook?