For years facebook has been sitting on one of the most detailed personal search platforms in the world, they know pretty much everything you tell it.
How much have you told facebook?
Most of us will share more than usual, because it’s easy. A song you like pop’s up, we like it. A business or brand pop’s up, we like it. A friends photo, we like it. A restaurant or hotel, we like it. A great story or joke, we like it. A quick look at my profile and there are over 1000 things that I like, seriously I couldn’t even write a list that long, but over the years there have been things that I found interesting that I’ve liked and that always has been available in some way for facebook to search and now it’s almost public.
Facebook invites you to trial the Graph search beta test
Since facebook listed, the focus really has been on a mission to monetize the platform, how can they make a free to use platform that changed the world, make enough money to keep up with the growth and demand? We’ve seen changes to advertising, offers, promoted posts, sponsored stories and now THIS!
For one, I’m excited! Used correctly this has potential to really shake up the world again, we now have the option to search a message in free text – just like google…
Who are my friends that are in Sydney right now?
Who’s free for a date tonight?
What hotels have my friends stayed at in London?
What restaurants have my friends eaten at it Melbourne?
This is exciting and poses not only a bunch of great opportunities in business, but also some serious threats. If I were an online dating service I’d be watching this like a hawk…. doesn’t facebook already have all of the information that you would include in a dating profile at their finger tips? Except it’s discreet and a whole other post.
Down to business….
Drumroll please…. INTRODUCING FACEBOOK GRAPH SEARCH
Facebooks greatest innovation ever
Mashable wrote a great article that includes more detail into the sentiment of the search and also claims it could be facebooks greatest innovation ever, we agree.
They also spend some time on the potential grief it may bring to privacy issues. A valid time to ensure your facebook privacy is tight and that your profile is only hosting things that you want people to know about you.
Imagine, your planning a trip and now everything you need to know is in facebook, well as much as we have shared anyway.
Tell us in the comments, what are you most excited to search for?
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Great Blog. Very interesting. I am wondering if this is to do with why FB changed their layout with checkin. Before it listed chronologically where your friends had last checked in. Whether it was 5 min or 5 days ago the last person to check in was at the top of the list. This updated constantly. It didn’t matter if the last place checked into was in Bondi or Berlin, it wasn’t about proximity, it was about where your mates last checked in. Now all that’s gone. 🙁 Now its listing near by checkin points that are ‘nearby’. No where near as valuable to me but definitely more of a selling point for them. It will state which friends have visited there but that could have been 3 years ago.
Potentially Dave Hodgson, although that could also be one of the recent security changes. There were a few issues around unwanted stalkers, so that change could be a butt covering exercise. Agreed though, not as useful as being able to grab a coffee with a mate who was in the cafe next door ;).
I was about to add, it was the ultimate stalker tool. In one way, if you have people following you around and you don’t want them to know where you are, then probably best not check in on the largest social network in the world. As you say though, butt covering is probably at work there. It really was the perfect tool when your night finished unexpectedly early, or a friend is running late, or even if your at home studying and want to torture yourself by seeing where everyone else was on a Saturday night 😉
Great read, and very relevant for all of us, thanks for the update and keep them coming.
Been waiting for something like this, might help us recruit/headhunt players in the future. “Who out of my friends plays soccer”…. Very interesting blog!
I hadn’t considered it for sports recruitment, awesome idea 🙂