Social-media giant wants new tool
to keep users on site and grab a
slice of sizeable advertising
revenue tied to search the web to begin and end on its
site. Its first significant move into
search is designed to provide all
the answers to users' questions:
which of my friends like Rihanna?
How many of my friends speak
German? Which TV shows are my
colleagues watching?
Graph Search, which was
announced by Mark Zuckerberg on
Tuesday, is a clear statement of
intent. It is designed for the age of
the social web, when internet users
spend more time on Facebook or
Twitter than they do searching the
outside web.
How does it work? Users can search
their friends, based on the
information they have given
Facebook permission to publish.
For example, users will be able to
quickly find "photos of my friends
taken in Paris, France" or
"Restaurants liked by friends in
London".
Zuckerberg described Graph
Search, in typical start-up fashion,
as the "beta of version one". But he
also described it as the "third
pillar" of Facebook, after the news
feed and timeline. He later said
Graph Search could be a business
in its own right – a remark that will
prompt anxiety among Google
executives.
The announcement – the first since
Facebook's disastrous initial public
offering in May last year – was
strategically timed, ahead of its
fourth-quarter earnings call on 30
January. Facebook has already
succeeded in lifting its share price
above $30. The announcement of
Graph Search also comes as
Facebook faces questions about
whether its growth to 1bn users is
petering out. Facebook's UK user
total dropped by 600,000 in
December , according to data from
SocialBakers, a social-media
monitoring company.
Nate Elliot, a social-media analyst
at Forrester Research, said the
graph search announcement was
part of Facebook's ambition to
keep users coming back to its site.
"Facebook's worst nightmare is a
static social graph," he said. "If
users aren't adding very many new
friends or connections, then their
personal network becomes less and
less active over time. Terrifyingly
for Facebook, that threat is very
real. We haven't seen significant
growth in the average number of
friends per user recently.
"Graph Search seems designed to
encourage users to add more
friends more quickly. If it means
users' personal networks change
more frequently, and become
more active, then that keeps them
coming back to the site – which is
vital to Facebook's success. If
Facebook and Bing can bring
elements of Graph Search to
Facebook's web search tool, then
that's great. But it's not the point;
the point is to keep Facebook users
more active within the site."
Facebook was quick to rebut many
of the privacy questions that it
expects to be raised about Graph
Search, which essentially helps to
surface photographs or other data
which before may have been
buried. Graph Search does not
make public any information that
was not previously public, so users
need not rush to change their
privacy settings. But some users
may be surprised to be presented
with photos that they did not know
they had been tagged in.
Zuckerberg, a man whose past
tangles with privacy still make him
visibly nervous on stage, spent
longer talking about privacy
safeguards than at any other
Facebook announcement I have
seen. That may be a symptom of
Facebook becoming a public
company, or it could simply be a
sign that it is simply growing up.
Whatever the cause, the prize for
getting graph search right first
time is very real: search makes up
the largest portion of digital
advertising spending in the US, up
from $15.1bn in 2011 to $17.58bn
in 2012. And which company
commands 74.5% of that $17.58bn
ad spend? Google.
to keep users on site and grab a
slice of sizeable advertising
revenue tied to search the web to begin and end on itssite. Its first significant move into
search is designed to provide all
the answers to users' questions:
which of my friends like Rihanna?
How many of my friends speak
German? Which TV shows are my
colleagues watching?
Graph Search, which was
announced by Mark Zuckerberg on
Tuesday, is a clear statement of
intent. It is designed for the age of
the social web, when internet users
spend more time on Facebook or
Twitter than they do searching the
outside web.
How does it work? Users can search
their friends, based on the
information they have given
Facebook permission to publish.
For example, users will be able to
quickly find "photos of my friends
taken in Paris, France" or
"Restaurants liked by friends in
London".
Zuckerberg described Graph
Search, in typical start-up fashion,
as the "beta of version one". But he
also described it as the "third
pillar" of Facebook, after the news
feed and timeline. He later said
Graph Search could be a business
in its own right – a remark that will
prompt anxiety among Google
executives.
The announcement – the first since
Facebook's disastrous initial public
offering in May last year – was
strategically timed, ahead of its
fourth-quarter earnings call on 30
January. Facebook has already
succeeded in lifting its share price
above $30. The announcement of
Graph Search also comes as
Facebook faces questions about
whether its growth to 1bn users is
petering out. Facebook's UK user
total dropped by 600,000 in
December , according to data from
SocialBakers, a social-media
monitoring company.
Nate Elliot, a social-media analyst
at Forrester Research, said the
graph search announcement was
part of Facebook's ambition to
keep users coming back to its site.
"Facebook's worst nightmare is a
static social graph," he said. "If
users aren't adding very many new
friends or connections, then their
personal network becomes less and
less active over time. Terrifyingly
for Facebook, that threat is very
real. We haven't seen significant
growth in the average number of
friends per user recently.
"Graph Search seems designed to
encourage users to add more
friends more quickly. If it means
users' personal networks change
more frequently, and become
more active, then that keeps them
coming back to the site – which is
vital to Facebook's success. If
Facebook and Bing can bring
elements of Graph Search to
Facebook's web search tool, then
that's great. But it's not the point;
the point is to keep Facebook users
more active within the site."
Facebook was quick to rebut many
of the privacy questions that it
expects to be raised about Graph
Search, which essentially helps to
surface photographs or other data
which before may have been
buried. Graph Search does not
make public any information that
was not previously public, so users
need not rush to change their
privacy settings. But some users
may be surprised to be presented
with photos that they did not know
they had been tagged in.
Zuckerberg, a man whose past
tangles with privacy still make him
visibly nervous on stage, spent
longer talking about privacy
safeguards than at any other
Facebook announcement I have
seen. That may be a symptom of
Facebook becoming a public
company, or it could simply be a
sign that it is simply growing up.
Whatever the cause, the prize for
getting graph search right first
time is very real: search makes up
the largest portion of digital
advertising spending in the US, up
from $15.1bn in 2011 to $17.58bn
in 2012. And which company
commands 74.5% of that $17.58bn
ad spend? Google.
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