Facebook Graph Search – The Giant is at it Again!

While announcing the new Facebook Graph Search feature, Mark Zuckerberg in his keynote presentation for Facebook revealed that its users have uploaded staggering 240 billion photos and have created 1 trillion connections on the network to date.

“Facebook has announced the new search engine on its social networking website. This means that search results served to you will be more relevant on a social scale. Data gathered from several user profiles over the years will make results closer to you and your friends circle.”

Currently in its beta version at the moment, Facebook Graph Search is now available only to a limited number of users. It will be rolled out slowly across Facebook .

The Facebook Graph Search results focus on four core points – people, places, photos and interests. 

(Reading - Facebook Graph Search - Social Search.)

Facebook can easily generate these results now. Because it has spent quite a few years making users upload information, specific interests and their pics to their profile online.

You can sign up for the new Graph Search immediately from here.

Social search is the way to go. After all what will you do with so much user data if you can’t monetize it? Mark Zuckerberg will pat my back for this! xD. Keeping puns aside lets come straight to the details.

Search Engine Giant Google has right now only Bing as it’s serious search rival but now with Facebook Graph search coming to the foray things are set to change. ( Although it’s confirmed that for those searches which are beyond open graph Bing’s service will be used inside Facebook. )

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Facebook users have so far uploaded a whopping 240 billion photos and created 1 trillion connections, revealed the social networking company’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg at its press event in Menlo Park.

In the E-world data means everything. User Data is the king. This is what Facebook has been doing since the years. Collecting user data in an unobtrusive way so as to make the users believe that they are getting a great service for free. But their information is the cost. Google too has pushed up it’s data collecting ante in the recent months through it’s new augmented reality game Google Ingress.

(Reading - Facebook Graph Search - Social Search.)

On an average, a normal Facebook user would have uploaded more than 200 pics and made a thousand connections. It is now estimated that Facebook is the most popular online service entity ever.

“Facebook’s mission is to make the world more open and connected. The main way we do this is by giving people the tools to map out their relationships with the people and things they care about. We call this map the graph. It’s big and constantly expanding with new people, content and connections. There are already more than a billion people, more than 240 billion photos and more than a trillion connections,”

said the company in a blog post recently.

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An Introduction to How Facebook Graph Search Works.

 

Facebook Graph Search uses an “Interest Search” feature which categorizes search results on the basis of common user interests. Keeping aside searches directly related to people, we can also search for our interests. There are many examples like “songs my friends listen” or “my friends who watch DBZ Anime”.

The below photograph explains this feature in a more elaborate manner.

 

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This kind of search is a whole new type of search which opens up the avenues for future employers and hirers to dig into further details regarding an employee. I bet several Employees won’t be happy with their bosses snooping on them through Facebook Graph search.

(Reading - Facebook Graph Search - Social Search.)

There is also a “People Search” option. We can make direct search queries or general search queries through this feature. An interesting example will be of “My friends in Bangalore” this is a general search query. An example for a specific direct query can be “people named Nishant who are friends of Aminder and went to Guru Premsukh”. Immediately, you are directed to results of all friends of Nishant who are named Amninder, and have registered Guru Premsukh as a place of education, work etc.

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Another interesting feature is the image based “Photo Search“. The photo search is feature will surely make the protect online privacy brigade go ablaze . Using search keywords like “photos of friends at Red Fort” or a more precise “Shilpa’s photos in mussorie” would yield instant results.

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A sponsored Graph search listing via Facebook.
(Reading - Facebook Graph Search - Social Search.)

And there is the “Location Search” feature. For an instance, if my friend “Hari” lives in Kerala and comes to Delhi and wants to know about places to visit, then he can use it. He can search for “restaurants in New Delhi liked by people of New Delhi” . And this will fetch him local information on places that the people in the area have checked in to on Facebook.

Right now the Facebook Graph Search feature requires people to signup. But we expect Facebook to make this service open to all in a matter of months. The Facebook Graph Search is currently in its beta stage. It is available once you sign up and register your intent to be on the waiting list. But if you are the ultra patient variety then you can wait for inevitable roll out for all Facebook users in the not so immediate future.

We can now envision a future search world where both types of search engines may exist. Social as well as non-social. Facebook can’t even dent Google in the general search category because frankly speaking Google has the most raw power when it comes to search. But Google’s social side never really picked up.

Google has been trying real hard to up its social quotient. 500 million + users on Google+ and counting. But the fact remains that where do people really want to share their data. The place where bulk of people’s social circle is present will be the winner.

(Reading - Facebook Graph Search - Social Search.)

As of for now the scales are tipped in favor of Facebook. Only time can tell.
Stay tuned for more.

What’s your take, let us know in the comments section below.

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Aditya Nath Jha is an Engineer from New Delhi, India. His areas of interest include Gadgets, WordPress, speed optimization & latest technology. When he is not busy blogging he loves to write poetry, compose his own songs and has a taste for music! Find him on Facebook, Twitter, Linked in, Instagram. And watch his videos on YouTube.


Facebook Graph Search – The Giant is at it Again!

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