Through Facebook’s continuous attempt to reign supreme in the digital world, Mark Zuckerburg has introduced users to Graph Search, a new way to search online, centered around four focus areas – People, Places, Photos and Interests. The way this works, lets say that I’m going on a trip to D.C. and I want to see who may be in the area while I’m there. With this tool you should now be able to do a simple search and the results will show you friends, or friends of friends who will be there. There are also high hopes that this new function will help users find jobs easier or find great local businesses to support. The goal is to also get friends to “connect” more and see what you all may have in common with one another, finally taking the ‘Social’ in Social Network literally. Although this search engine is certainly not up to the same level as LinkedIn, Yelp or Google yet, one does have to wonder if these sites may be a thing of the past, sooner rather than later, if this new search tool becomes successful (and we all know Facebook is no stranger to successful new elements).
Although based on user reviews, I’m starting to wonder if maybe Zuckerburg got a little ahead of himself and released this tool a little too early. The search tool is currently only successful for those who update their profiles frequently, which only a small percentage take the time to do. Facebook has also always been a strong advocate for User Privacy, but with this new search tool, users are now no longer able to opt out of the search results like you were before. Although with some finessing, I do think that the Graph Search could become a strong contender amongst Search Engine leaders, but its certainly going to take some time and perhaps an overhaul in profile updating and refining. Only time will tell, what do you think?