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Introducing Graph Search

facebook.com

171–180 of 266 posts

Re: Introducing Graph Search

#171
post #50

This bears much more resemblance to Wolfram|Alpha than it does to Google Search. Glad to see natural language interfaces are finally going mainstream.

The example queries remind me of Prolog.

...in the sense that it is:

  query is term1(person) & term2(person) & term3(person) ...
i.e.

  query :- term1(p), term2(p), term3(p)

Re: Introducing Graph Search

#172

This is an important step for Facebook and I'm surprised no one has really mentioned it (all ~50 comments so far are about the graph search). The big thing here isn't graph search, or the fancy searching per se. The big thing here is this: > "and meet new people, too." This is huge. Huge! Facebook from the start was envisioned as a sort-of dating platform but that part of it got swept under the rug real quick. Throug…

Right now search for people that aren't in your friends-of-friends network is generally broken. When I try to find someone by name/school, name/city etc it returns that no-one exists. I suspect it's some kind of sharding issue and FB search right now isn't global.

To that extent, this is a pretty big thing for them to pull off. I could certainly see it helping their growth if you are finally able to search for people in a more fine-grained way and connect with them.

Some say this may be unwanted -- that's exactly why FB has been testing having people pay to send messages. They know this will be a problem and are searching for solutions.

Re: Introducing Graph Search

#173

This is an important step for Facebook and I'm surprised no one has really mentioned it (all ~50 comments so far are about the graph search). The big thing here isn't graph search, or the fancy searching per se. The big thing here is this: > "and meet new people, too." This is huge. Huge! Facebook from the start was envisioned as a sort-of dating platform but that part of it got swept under the rug real quick. Throug…

> This is huge. Huge! Quite the opposite, in my opinion. People don't like being bothered by strangers on Facebook. It's weird and creepy, especially so when it's a guy contacting a girl. This could be seen as a disincentive to share if you don't want your face popping up on search results for people outside your immediate network. It also makes friends who are ignorant or careless about privacy more of a liability.…

I seem to recall that many moons ago, I set up my privacy settings to prevent others from tagging me in photos.

Revisiting it just now, the options in that section of Privacy are now fairly byzantine, but I think I still have it locked down :-)

Re: Introducing Graph Search

#174
post #78

1. Weird marketing, the word "Graph" doesn't mean anything to average people. Just call it "Facebook Search". Also these cold hyper emotional sounds kinda turn me off, even Apple has more friendly ads. Did they steal the music from some apocalyptic space movie trailer? 2. Interesting problem, to make all that data available to natural search queries. Definitely an attack on Google who still can't really answer natura…

I think the reasoning for "Graph" is that social "network" and "search" have been used and abused too much. They don't want you thinking graph theory algorithms, but they will borrow from graph theory to have a new word.

Re: Introducing Graph Search

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is huge. Huge! Quite the opposite, in my opinion. People don't like being bothered by strangers on Facebook. It's weird and creepy, especially so when it's a guy contacting a girl. This could be seen as a disincentive to share if you don't want your face popping up on search results for people outside your immediate network. It also makes friends who are ignorant or careless about privacy more of a liability.…

> People don't like being bothered by strangers People love being bothered by strangers. Just try it. Make any half-funny observation about the world around you to a random stranger in the line, at the hairdresser... just not when they're actively doing something. Weather the surprise, repeat what you said if necessary, allow them to come up with a response. If they don't, follow through yourself. At first it seems l…

> At first it seems like you're a crazy person talking at others. But after a minute (though it'll feel like a little longer) most people will happily talk to you.

Yes - but if you watch very carefully you'll notice their eyes darting nervously about, trying to find the nearest exit, and a small frown appear as they attempt to calculate the whether staying in the line is worth it, and the likelihood of you attempting to sell them something or attempt violence if you make your excuses.

In other words - if some random guy starts talking to you in a line, you will tend to make small-talk in return. Whether you like it or not.

Re: Introducing Graph Search

#177
post #120

They're going to have the same problem wolfram alpha has, since in the space of "all queries" only a tiny, tiny fraction of them are going to be ones that Facebook can resolve. Now, it might be less of a practical problem since the use cases for FB search are pretty clear and obvious, unlike W|A. But it doesn't sound like this is an open-ended search engine. Imagine typing say "shoes for sale on amazon" and getting "…

You are correct, although I would modulate this by adding that techy types like us are likely to undervalue people search compared to the average person.

Conversely, this kind of feature has obvious value for journalists, who are thus likely to overhype its game-changing quality.

Re: Introducing Graph Search

#178

This is an important step for Facebook and I'm surprised no one has really mentioned it (all ~50 comments so far are about the graph search). The big thing here isn't graph search, or the fancy searching per se. The big thing here is this: > "and meet new people, too." This is huge. Huge! Facebook from the start was envisioned as a sort-of dating platform but that part of it got swept under the rug real quick. Throug…

First to replicate OKCupid's compatibility algorithm and automatically do it for Facebook profiles, throw it into a SoLoMo app, then charge $20 to hang out -- what the kids are calling it these days -- your top 5 compatible people and boom! You got a hit. Then watch it get copied. But it's okay, you'll get the last laugh in another few decades when having a Facebook profile is more powerful than having government iss…

What you describe sounds eerily like the äppärät from Super Sad True Love Story.

Re: Introducing Graph Search

#179

Graph Search seems like strange branding to me. I almost didn't click the link because I thought "Graph Search" was a new API and not a user-facing product (to be fair, the context was a posting on HN so I was predisposed to think API). Graph Search's real focus appears to be on the use of natural language and the presentation of/interaction with data. The "Graph" is almost the least interesting about it.

I don't think that branding is for users. I think users will always just see "Facebook Search" when this is eventually rolled out broadly. The "Graph" part of "Graph Search" is for us geeks and for Wall Street. The idea is to obviously differentiate this against Google's "Web Search", "Image Search", and other Thing-Searches.

Re: Introducing Graph Search

#180
Am I the only one that doesn't usually click on "like' things? I mean things like 'dancing', 'outdoors' or 'Game Of Thrones'. Even if I like them. First, because I don't think one day "hey, I like dancing, so I think I should state it on Facebook so everyone knows!" And second, because most of the times, liking something gets your timeline full of useless updates.

Not sure if is something that adds real value for users. We'll see...

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