Since the advent of the ‘Social Networking’ site, Facebook (FB), staying ‘in touch’ with loved ones has become ‘unbelievably’ easier. It allows one to post text messages, photos, videos…anything. You can share information with the general public, or send private little notes to a more specific audience. “The choice is yours.”
FB is so convenient that it now has over a billion users, the world over, regardless of age (“Newborns included, although I fail to understand why”), or even species (Pet dogs, cats, monkeys, hamsters, fish, garden gnomes…et al, included. “Yes. Seriously”)
Apart from networking, over time, FB also became popular for its games (FarmVille, Texas HoldEm Poker, Scrabble, Mafia Wars, et al). Now, it’s also used widely by businesses to promote their company, or their wares, to a large audience.
However, (possibly) in an attempt to highlight its original purpose, Facebook has now introduced its very own ‘Search Engine’- ‘Graph Search’. This feature allows one to run a more thorough search on FB, using phrases, rather than single words. Its main focus is on places, photos, interests, and people. How it differs from a regular Search Engine, however, is that its results are based on the information provided by FB users.
The ‘Graphic Search’ feature appears as a ‘search bar’ on the top of every single page on Facebook. So simply by typing in ‘restaurants in town my friends like’, or ‘people named Nolan, working in Bumble bee, who’s friends with Smith’, or even ‘photos I like’, FB would pull out, and provide the respective data from members within your circle, and your past ‘FB activity’. As it is based upon reviews, suggestions, ‘likes’, of known sources, it enables one to derive ‘reliable’ information, within seconds.
In other words, it’s a highly refined version, of its currently existing ‘search’ option.
In order to furnish us with other web information, FB has partnered with Microsoft’s Search Engine ‘Bing’, to do so. As Facebook shares a strong relationship with Microsoft, since the latter invested $240 Million in FB back in 2007, the choice of ‘Bing’ seemed obvious.
However, ‘eyebrows were raised’ at FB overlooking ‘Google’ for the position, considering the latter’s status in the ‘Search Engine’ market. It led to hearsay of a possible ulterior motive on Facebook’s part, to compete with the ‘giants’.
Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg, put such speculations to rest by stating,
“We would love to work with Google. We just wanted to incorporate search, and as long as the companies are willing to honor the privacy of folks sharing content on Facebook, we’ll work with them. We just haven’t gotten it worked out with Google yet.”
“Yes. You heard right”. Facebook is giving highest priority to the ‘privacy of its members’, in this feature. Knowing how their audience would be apprehensive over FB using their data to publish relevant results to others, the company ensures to only stick to ‘public information’. That is, only the data that’s been set to ‘public’, by a member, will be employed. Their private information will remain untouched.
This new ‘Graph Search’ feature is currently only available in English, and in its ‘beta form’, as Facebook plans to pursue it depending entirely upon its popularity. Also, for the time being, it’s targeted only at ‘desktop users’, with a promise to release a ‘mobile version’, shortly.
In order to acquire this feature, one needs to sign up to its ‘waitlist’*, first. FB plans to ‘pursue’ it in a ‘slow-and-steady’ manner, as it wants to cater to its audience, perfectly.
So, sign-up as soon as possible, to witness it at its ‘raw stage’, and help it grow. “You could be one of the lucky few”.
- http://facebook.com/graphsearch