You probably might have been hearing a lot about Facebook’s new Graph Search, and indeed, it was a hot trending topic a few days back (still is). So what is it all about? We know Facebook had crawlers and robots that indexed websites, and checked for their reliability. But now, Facebook has introduced a search engine of its own, that will let you browse through the vast treasures of data the world’s largest social media network possesses.
What is actually great about Graph Search?
Unlike Google, Facebook has a large amount of personal data for more than a Billion users around the world. Even though Google has access to the whole internet, it doesn’t have such a large dataset when it comes to user data. Google Plus sure is big, but isn’t big enough. So it seems Facebook has an edge in this regard.
Now as you may know, Facebook has well over a Billion users now. And counting the total number of pages, groups, and communities etc, trillions or conections can be made. Facebook Graph Search aims at streamlining available user data, and present you with just the information you want.
What can you do with Graph Search?
Facebook Graph Search is an intelligent search engine that lets you input various parameters, and streamlines your search results accordingly. Here are a few examples of how you can use this Graph Search.
“Photos that I like” – This will show you all the photos that you’ve ever liked (or so Facebook will have us believe).
“Fast food joints in London that my friends like” – Will help you find a good restaurant in London.
“Friends in London who like to play Call of Duty” – Pretty cool, right? You can use this to gather around all your gamer friends, and have a multiplayer match!
“Friends of friends who went to Cambridge University” – Maybe, you can find some college friends this way, who knows?
“Bands liked by people who also like Metallica” – This one is for the metalheads out there! Use this to discover more metal bands and music groups that your friends like.
“Friends of friends who live in New York” – I don’t know why you’d want to search this, but you get the gist.
As you can see, you can find a whole lot of new information this way. “It’s a completely new way for people to find information on Facebook,” says Mark Zuckerberg. This search is almost akin to the advanced voice search apps on the iOS (Siri) and Android platforms. But of course, this search is limited to Facebook, and is text based search. It will also auto-complete your queries in real-time, and give you suggestions, just like Google search.
The power of recommendations will play a vital role in almost all searches, because people like to check out what others recommend. Google tried to introduce a similar concept with its +1 button, but Facebook’s way of doing it seems somewhat more convenient.
You will see this feature in a new blue search bar at the top of every page pretty soon. Right now, the project is in its initial phase, with work still going on. Stay tuned for more updates on Facebook Graph Search, and stay heerful. Peace :)
