Yesterday, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO unveiled Graph Search, a new search engine, currently in beta (sign up for the waitlist here) Facebook says “takes us back to our roots and allows people to use the graph to make new connections.”
According to Gizmodo, Zuckerberg hasn’t just given us:
A way to find your friends (or college frenemies). And it’s beyond just some attempt at a Google replacement. It’s an attempt to do what Google failed at doing – pulling all the information that matters to you within the context of your social life, skipping the results that are popular to The Internet, in favor of the results that are popular within a group you actually give a damn about.
Graph Search will focus on people, photos, places and interests. Graph Search will appear as a bigger search bar at the top of each page. It appears to work like this: Let’s say you’re looking for a great sandwich for lunch. Instead of performing a Google search or visiting Yelp, you decide to use Graph Search. This method will pull recommendations for you based on what your Facebook friends like the most. It will use their check-ins, tags and Likes to find you a list of recommendations.
You will also be able to use Graph Search to find specific photos of your friends and even search for specific people you would like to connect with or just chat with. This kind of functionality will help people on both a personal and professional level and could eventually pit Facebook against a network like LinkedIn.
Certainly this is an improved search function for Facebook. Their search engine has lacked even basic usefulness since its inception. Whether this is a game-changing announcement or not is still to be seen.
Are you excited about Graph Search? Is it good for businesses marketing on Facebook?
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