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Introducing Graph Search

facebook.com

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Re: Introducing Graph Search

#11

Post by merinid »

DannyBee wrote: post #2

I guess i don't get why I should care. I either have to unfriend people to get it to give me stuff i care about (since it appears to have no way to explain i don't give a shit what my grandma thinks about sushi in palo alto), or it's giving me answers that don't seem better. I understand they needed to improve their site/internal search, and this looks great for that. But it just doesn't seem like that big a deal to…

My spin on it is more so positive. At least they still care about product and tackling very difficult questions. This is not some advertising backend optimization or yet another smartphone integration. The fact that most of the speculators missed this entirely is even better news. Facebook is still engineering and technology driven, and this is the hope that keeps all of this still very interesting with much to look forward to.

Re: Introducing Graph Search

#13

Post by chetan51 »

DannyBee wrote: post #2

I guess i don't get why I should care. I either have to unfriend people to get it to give me stuff i care about (since it appears to have no way to explain i don't give a shit what my grandma thinks about sushi in palo alto), or it's giving me answers that don't seem better. I understand they needed to improve their site/internal search, and this looks great for that. But it just doesn't seem like that big a deal to…

Well hopefully with enough data, it can automatically know that you don't care about your grandma's sushi preferences, and deemphasize that information when you search.

Re: Introducing Graph Search

#15

Post by phwd »

I'm torn. On one side I really like it, it reminds me of the old People Search feature Facebook used to have. On the other side for third party developers especially those who try to make the Facebook experience better, I'm afraid this is reinforcing the point you should not build 100% on platforms.

I'm sure there are many who have had this idea or are building this currently. Facebook Heroku templates given for new developers to start with, hit on the four main areas that Graph Search seem to provide.

Another example would be a query like

    movies liked by people who like movies I like
In FQL the closest I would have gotten was

   SELECT name, page_id from page where page_id in (SELECT page_id from page_fan where uid in (SELECT uid2 FROM friend WHERE uid1 = me()) and profile_section='movies')
And even then FQL was unstable

So then you wonder, why use an app with an unstable query built on an API filled with bugs when I can faster get the result using facebook.com?

Re: Introducing Graph Search

#17

Post by DannyBee »

chetan51 wrote: post #9
DannyBee wrote: post #2

I guess i don't get why I should care. I either have to unfriend people to get it to give me stuff i care about (since it appears to have no way to explain i don't give a shit what my grandma thinks about sushi in palo alto), or it's giving me answers that don't seem better. I understand they needed to improve their site/internal search, and this looks great for that. But it just doesn't seem like that big a deal to…

Well for one, it seems like a great way to browse Facebook content using natural language, rather that mouse clicks and page surfing. I like the idea of saying "give me pictures that I like taken in my hometown with my brother", rather than clicking through a bunch of filters. I for one welcome any new natural language interface that can replace and improve on click interactions.

sure, i get the "better way to work with facebook's site" aspect, and i'm sold on that, but that doesn't seem to be how either facebook or the press is trying to sell it

(I wouldn't be so harsh if it was just the press trying to sell it this way, since the press is always trying to generate clicks :P)

Re: Introducing Graph Search

#18

Post by aviswanathan »

Not sure if anyone has mentioned this yet, but if you watch the video on the bottom part of the page with Zuck, one of them explicitly says how this product competes with Google. Something about how if two people search for Apple on Google, they'll get the same results, but if they search Apple on FB Graph Search, they'll get personalized results. It's really interesting from a technology perspective the way that search is becoming personalized, and we've definitely seen Google eyeballing search personalization, but it's been limited pretty much to geo and the limited info on G+. Facebook is uniquely positioned to use the volume of data on each person to provide more meaningful results.

From a revenue perspective, I think this is definitely competitive to Google. Not saying it will succeed, but businesses will definitely see value in advertising to hyper-specific segments and personal groups. It sounds strange to say, but I do think UI and speed will be key components of whether FB GS will do well. Search is a convenience market, and if FB GS isn't convenient, Google is always one click away.

Re: Introducing Graph Search

#19

Post by monsterix »

Looks like head-on with Google, and then why not? The results are specific to a user and his/her taste or surroundings. Something that Google also tries to achieve using history.

Would love to give it a sping. Waitlisted, uh.

Re: Introducing Graph Search

#20

Post by jonknee »

merinid wrote: post #11
DannyBee wrote: post #2

I guess i don't get why I should care. I either have to unfriend people to get it to give me stuff i care about (since it appears to have no way to explain i don't give a shit what my grandma thinks about sushi in palo alto), or it's giving me answers that don't seem better. I understand they needed to improve their site/internal search, and this looks great for that. But it just doesn't seem like that big a deal to…

My spin on it is more so positive. At least they still care about product and tackling very difficult questions. This is not some advertising backend optimization or yet another smartphone integration. The fact that most of the speculators missed this entirely is even better news. Facebook is still engineering and technology driven, and this is the hope that keeps all of this still very interesting with much to look…

... Search is how a large portion of money is made on the internet. This is quite obviously a move to stop people from going to Google for some types of monetizable search queries (movies, music, local, etc).
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