Ever desired to know which of your Facebook friends like your favorite restaurant, or wondered which people on the platform workout at your favorite gym? Thanks to Facebook’s Graph Search, you’ll be to search for such information until your heart’s content on the most populated social media site in the world.
Announced earlier this week from his Silicon Valley headquarters, Mark Zuckerberg and his crew made the big announcement of Facebook’s “third pillar” before invited press. Surprisingly, there was no livestream of the event, so we uninvited had to rely on the tweets, live blogging, and online reports of those that were there.
So what is it about Facebook Graph Search that has it looking at Google saying, “How you like me now?” Graph Search challenges Google’s very own attempt at integrating search, social, and big data. Big data is simply the personal informational and behaviors we exhibit on online that helps businesses, including social networks, better target their ads to customers.
Thanks to this data, the Facebook Graph Search can aggegrate a lot of information about you–your likes, photos, places we visit, etc.–and that of your friends and make it searchable. Zuckerberg states it’s a great way of connecting with your friends based on common interests. Now, where I have heard that before? Ummm…Google+, maybe?
Still, when you look at what Facebook Graph Search provides, it could be better defined as “Facebook Demographic Database Search,” says Forbes.com.
Now, if you’re worried all those questionable sites you liked will be put on “front street” with your name attached check your privacy settings. The data Facebook Graph displays is based on what you already share with your friends or publicly. By now your friends probably already know you’re a little “different” (just joking!). If you want to keep just how different private, adjust your account settings as well as those on individual posts.
To get a better overall picture of just how Graph Search will work, roll this beautiful YouTube footage with the cool SceneChat integration! What’s Scenechat? It’s a nifty tool that enables me to talk to you as the video plays.
Like the potential in what you saw in the video? If you want to test it out for yourself, visit HERE to get on the waiting list. Search Graph is currently in beta.
But what does this mean for businesses? Considering Graph Search results come from the likes of users and their friends, hopefully those individuals have liked your page. And eventually when this new search expands, your business page will appear in the search of topics related to it. So get your fan pages up to date with good content and keep them that way!
