Graph search is designed to take a precise query and return to you the answer, not the links where you might get the answer.

Not what most for hoping for in terms of competition with google I'm sure!

Boring.

Bing gets a higher profile in the search. Bing will provide web search with Facebook Graph providing Facebook content search.

Graph Search is rolling out over the next few months and weeks and is currently in beta.

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it. As already pointed out, there's a heck of a lot of information on Facebook. A lot of locations & businesses have been geo-tagged. The search bar is in front of hundreds of millions of people. All it takes is for people to start using it and it becomes a very powerful gateway indeed.

That would be the only value I would see in it from a marketing standpoint. I think users will like it but not as a method for doing searches for services and retail. I would like to see the number of changes that occur with privacy settings in response to this announcement.

We must look at this from the standpoint of an average user of Facebook. It's far too easy for us to dismiss things that we don't like as webmasters.

I believe that most (average) users of Facebook will have some interest in the things that Graph Search can do for them, and if they like what they see they will use it more and more. Many people use the internet to arrange their social lives, the connections that Graph Search provides will help people do that. Another thing to bear in mind is that many people have lots of "Friends" so it's not inconceivable that bizzare search combinations will work and uncover connections that will turn out to really matter to the user. If Facebook can make people care about their search product (because it gives them a way to find people that they share unknown passions with) it's going to be something that gets used a lot.

It's always tricky to predict how things will pan out, but I'd say that people will quickly see that this can do things which Google cannot. It remains to be seen whether the lure of a search that's based around arranging your social life will tempt people to enter other types of search (to be answered by Bing from the same search box).

The way I see search is that some things/searches are more important to people than others. Do you care more about the quality of results for your favourite hobby or for a random, average, one-off information need? Searches for things people are passionate about (which very much includes their social life if a regular Facebook user) are much more important - and if someone just wants to use one search engine they will choose the one that answers those questions best, whilst accepting good (but not neccesarily excellent) results for things that are of less consequence.

This is going to put more pressure on Google+, as the fragmentation of the search market may be reliant on which social platform can keep its users. A worrying thing for Google is that each new, young, internet user is likely to be a heavy Facebook user - they have the older generations locked in but time may see them decline due to social being a primary online activity for younger users.

It will be very interesting to see how it plays out. For many averages users Facebook is the internet.

When Facebook experimented with integrating Open Graph results into their search during the summer of 2010 I managed to gather a lot of data and was genuinely shocked at how many people were using Facebook for local search queries. It is something I will keep a very close eye on.

Wow, what a big mistake in implementation! I can't believe Facebook would limit the search to their own users instead of making it globally available. It should be on their homepage for starters. They could learn a lesson from Google here in making everything they do globally accessible independently.

I'm not a member of Facebook anymore but I would have used their search feature. Ah well.

I wouldn't say its a big miss step but it would be great to have seen them put it on the home page and allow users to play with it there. If they wanted to leave it in beta for that they could use test data or use Facebook page information as the test set.

Give it time and they will index the web.

This is my take on the Facebook Graph Search -

Facebook always brings in something new/innovative on to the table even if it is something related to what we all know for years - "search engines". This is where it continues to score points over Google who obviously try to be more reactive than being innovative, these days.

But what surprises me is most of these giants seem to think that only like poles are always friends and people always like to see what their like poles do? It isn't even scientific, is it?

_{The theory/law of magnetism is: Like poles repel. Unlike poles attract.}

But what these giants are doing is limiting your boundaries and killing the possibility to explore beyond such boundaries - say friends, geo location, etc., thro. personalization. In a way, they are forcing you to listen only to your friends voices and not letting you look at what is going on the other side.

Give it time and they will index the web.

Doubtful, the web is a cesspool that is no longer worthy of indexing. It's easier and smarter for the giants like google and facebook to provide information than it is to try indexing and ranking the web.

We must look at this from the standpoint of an average user of Facebook.

while i second that, i come to a very different conclusion. apart from that it varies considerably across age groups and countries, which portion of the users do actually reveal something meaningful about themselves? and does that fraction suffice to give some useful everyday answers?

overall, i think the effectiveness of queries from a given user about other persons' likes (and that's what it seems to be all about at this time) will turn out rather underwhelming. ask yourself and for all i care ask a typical user: how much actually usable information will they personally get out of facebook connections? i really doubt that it will be that much, from queries like "which restaurants in new york do my indian friends like?" (a similar example from the facebook blog). if not privacy then large-scale incompleteness of provided personal information combined with lack of relevant peers will place quite a big hold on usefulness for the searcher. people are way too enthusiastic once again.

Doubtful, the web is a cesspool that is no longer worthy of indexing.

I kind of agree that it is a cesspool, but a cesspool people swim in everyday. I think there is greater value in indexing quality information sources and relevant data (e.g. Facebook info, pictures, etc.) but to compete with Google, that is where Facebook will have to go as a publicly traded company.

I think there is greater value in indexing quality information sources

Yes, but at this point in the history of the web it is more economical to provide quality information than it is to try and index the cesspool and extract quality from it. I believe that google and facebook have both come to this realization.

Don't dismiss FB's capability to execute a strategy that could take some significant market share over time.

But early days.

...tech analyst Karsten Weide of the IDC research firm said the company missed a bigger opportunity.

"If they committed to doing Web search and built a Web search engine that was turbocharged with social search, too, that would give Google a run for its money," Weide said.

Building a web search product is not viable for two reasons. The first reason is that a credible web search product is prohibitively expensive. The second reason is that it makes Facebook a competitor with their current ally, Bing. It makes no sense to spend billions of dollars (or more) on a product that may or may not be as good as Bing or Google and face an uphill battle to make a convincing case to the public why they should FB Web Search over Google or their partner Bing. It makes sense to piggyback on Bing. That's the short version.

Web search involves a deep investment of money into hardware, software and talent. Think of all the datacenters needed to provide a viable web search product, not to mention the software (algorithms) and original research to produce a web search product. It makes little financial sense for FB to build a "Web search engine that was turbocharged with social search" because it's financially and intellectually prohibitive. Not to mention that it would immediately make them a competitor to their partner Bing.

A third issue with that statement is the assumption that Social Search is something to be bolted on to Web Search, that Social Search turbocharges the engine of search. That statement reveals a lack of understanding that Social Search is it's own engine, not a value-add to the Web Search Engine. They are two different engines. That's the concept that Karsten Weide of the IDC research firm does not have his head around.

To be fair, many people don't have their head around this concept. It's truly new, which makes it hard to understand because it doesn't fit current conventions of what search is. Social search has the potential of being disruptive, of changing how people research certain kinds of information, much of which involves the spending of money and intersects with Mobile Search.

FB Search has the potential in itself to become many things that so-called tech analysts haven't even considered, like a dating research tool. It has the potential to become the killer Mobile Search tool. There are many more facets to FB Social search beyond what I just mentioned that in my opinion makes FB Social Search the app that will carry them into the mobile age and make Facebook relevant for the next ten years.

FB Search has the potential in itself to become many things that so-called tech analysts haven't even considered, like a dating research tool. It has the potential to become the killer Mobile Search tool. There are many more facets to FB Social search beyond what I just mentioned that in my opinion makes FB Social Search the app that will carry them into the mobile age and make Facebook relevant for the next ten years.

I am not sure about this, he has the money and let's wait for the outcome.

instead of the other way around, why don't they integrate bing in facebook? simple step, massive difference. you got to meet people where they are. in trying to send users away to bing, both web services suffer divergence loss. it makes no sense.

I have no idea if this is the right place to post but since 1-2 weeks Facebook is showing me ads based on my google searches. So the question is Google cookies used by facebook or something else fishy is going on. And no I don't use Bing.

People should note, in the latest round of Priavcy Setting "improvements", FB has opted everyone into search, (before you could opt out and not be included in the search index). Now, no matter what, your name, profile pic plus anything you haven't locked down on FB will be available via search.

The effect is that people are "sharing" less and culling their accounts of sensitive material and uploading less photos.

Search Option From Facebook Is a Privacy Test

Independent studies suggest that Facebook users are becoming more careful about how much they reveal online, especially since educators and employers typically scour Facebook profiles.

A Northwestern University survey of 500 young adults in the summer of 2012 found that the majority avoided posting status updates because they were concerned about who would see them. The study also found that many had deleted or blocked contacts from seeing their profiles and nearly two-thirds had untagged themselves from a photo, post or check-in.
[nytimes.com...]

I have no idea if this is the right place to post but since 1-2 weeks Facebook is showing me ads based on my google searches.

if you are logged into facebook or the FB cookies themselves could keep track of your every action like pages visited on the web etc. It is something similar to what google had been doing for years to show you relevant ads.

This is within friends and community and this is a good source of knowing the business/products/services. I mean one can get the reviews on business/products/services and plan accordingly.