The social network giant Facebook announced on December 8th, 2014 that the company is updating its search functionality by adding the ability to search for keywords. The update that took 9 months of testing, marks a major advance of Facebook's Graph Search.
The update, started to roll for English language users in the United States first. With it, users can search specific queries that contained posts, photos, articles and videos that were shared with them.
After launching Graph Search in January 2013, Facebook is pushing itself beyond the boundaries of social networks, entering the territory of Google search experience. As the "third pillar" of Facebook interface, the search function comes only after News Feed and Timeline.
Graph Search, according to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, differed from Google's. He explained how powerful it was by asking specific social queries. And the answer would differ depending on who did the searching.
But despite Zuckerberg's enthusiasm and Graph Search ability that had been proven useful, Facebook's search function just didn't get that appreciation it deserves.
Potential Threat to Many
Facebook kept improving its search feature. By incorporating feedback from users and its Graph Search functionality, Facebook has its hands on information for new changes. The company's Vice President of Search, Tom Stocky, said that the biggest pieces of feedback received for Graph Search were:
- Why can’t I search for posts?
- I want to use this on my phone!
- Can you make this easier to use?
"You've told us the most important thing is being able to find posts you've seen before, and now you can. With a quick search, you can get back to a fun video from your graduation, a news article you've been meaning to read, or photos from your friend's wedding last summer."
With that ability, Facebook is diving deeper into Google's territory. Facebook may have yet to put ads on its search function, but the company would be practically forced to do so. The outcome that may happen is Facebook starts to build its own percentage inside the search market.
In January 2014, Mark Zuckerberg said that "there are more than a trillion status updates and unstructured text posts and photos and pieces of content that people have shared over the past 10 years." Indexing all those contents was a challenge for Facebook because that amount is larger than the number of indexed web pages by most search engines.
Search results are ranked by the post time, post engagement and the levels of relationships. The posts from first-degree friends will be ranked higher than the public posts from the friends of friends. The feature also searches for posts from people and Pages the user follows.
This won't dent Google's powerful stronghold in the search market. But with Facebook's massive user base and Graph Search potential, people may use Google as a second option to search specific things. And with Facebook's more influence on mobile, Google's advertising revenue has the chance to decline.
Furthermore, Facebook's search is already a threat to companies like Yelp and Angie's List.
Search at Facebook is a long-term effort. This means that the company will keep improving its ability for days to come. At the moment of its release, Facebook said that the update is just aimed for "people, photos and places." The company didn't put a bigger emphasis on local search. Users can still search for places just like before, there's just no local search update.
