So when was the last time you decided to search the web and went somewhere other than Google? For most of you the answer would be a quick no, unless of course the You in this case are people you prefer Bing or Yahoo search more than what the search giant has to offer. For those who almost always use Google' web search, there is yet another option getting out of that cracked egg. Facebook announced its search product today. The search lets you find your interests, your friends photos, places your friends been visiting and anything else that comes under the umbrella Facebook calls the Graph. And aptly the search is called Facebook Graph Search.
With more than a billion users putting in a whole lot of private data in their hands, they have all that is required to build a search engine. Facebook though says its not a web search as you know. So in a way counting on an impression that is different from that of Google' search. It anyway is a search that people on web will use and the very likely end result that Facebook wants is user' spending more time on the search, getting used to it, using more and more of it, staying on it and ... well we know where this leads to. Away from Google!
Facebook has said they will keep the privacy of the users as their main concern. But what more is there than searching say, "photos that my friends like"? May be the first impression is not much. But hey, do you know there are around 240 billion photos that Google may not be able to index? Does that change your answer about the previous question? Maybe Yes, ok it may not change your answer but will force you to keep an eye on something else than your Google search page. Lets face the fact that people like to be on Facebook, you can't have trillion connections otherwise. Yes we know there are Google fans reading this, and we know what they are thinking. Google plus is an answer to Facebook. Well we agree to an extent. But like Google search has the advantage of a start and being arguably the best place to search on web, we also agree that Facebook has the same advantage in terms of a social network.
As I write this post someone just reminds me not to miss the Plus One Your World that the search giant introduced. The idea is same: building a personal web search that completes or fulfills user needs in its entirety. Weather of not Google has been able to take a lead on that is not an important question as of now. The competition has just began. In our minds, Google was winning it till now. Spanning the access to all of its products in the same way. Google plus came a little late but we all know Google learned from Buzz and Orkut. People like the feature. The social network itself has a lot of user' private data that they use in their Knowledge Graph. So while Facebook Graph Search will let you find out "who liked the posts that you liked", Google plus lets you search what people are interested in on the network.
Gmail on the other hand has been a complete separate product that collects a huge amount of data that Facebook like search still misses. Gmail now lets you search the private data that you need. Then there is YouTube that has may be as many videos as there are connections on Facebook(exaggeration is intended).
Facebook is taking help from Bing on the searches it can't find with its own data. So its essentially a 2 service competition with Google till now favored service. Google is a leader as of now but Facebook has signaled its arrival, finally. And, like we always say it finally turns out to be good news for users. Just watch out for the privacy concerns ;)
Facebook has said they will keep the privacy of the users as their main concern. But what more is there than searching say, "photos that my friends like"? May be the first impression is not much. But hey, do you know there are around 240 billion photos that Google may not be able to index? Does that change your answer about the previous question? Maybe Yes, ok it may not change your answer but will force you to keep an eye on something else than your Google search page. Lets face the fact that people like to be on Facebook, you can't have trillion connections otherwise. Yes we know there are Google fans reading this, and we know what they are thinking. Google plus is an answer to Facebook. Well we agree to an extent. But like Google search has the advantage of a start and being arguably the best place to search on web, we also agree that Facebook has the same advantage in terms of a social network.
Gmail on the other hand has been a complete separate product that collects a huge amount of data that Facebook like search still misses. Gmail now lets you search the private data that you need. Then there is YouTube that has may be as many videos as there are connections on Facebook(exaggeration is intended).
Facebook is taking help from Bing on the searches it can't find with its own data. So its essentially a 2 service competition with Google till now favored service. Google is a leader as of now but Facebook has signaled its arrival, finally. And, like we always say it finally turns out to be good news for users. Just watch out for the privacy concerns ;)
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