Facebook turns 10 this week, rolling out its graph search to mobile users as the social network sets its sights on Google’s search revenue-and it plans to use mobile to get there.
The social network was first formed back in 2004 as ‘The Facebook’ at Harvard University, providing a way for undergraduates to connect online. Now, founder Mark Zuckerberg plans to use the massive amounts of user data to take on Goolge in the search field.
A year on from introducing its Graph Search tool for more broadly searching data sitting on the social network, Facebook is now testing Graph Search on smartphones and tablets, according to a news report.
Technology blog Mashable posted a screenshot of what appears to be a tutorial for Graph Search running on a mobile device.
According to comments made by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on this week’s earnings call, Zuckerberg said the social network would be taking on Google for dominance in the search business.
He also pointed to three things which he says illustrates exactly how they are moving in this direction.
According to the Facebook founder, the social network actually have a larger data index than any of the other search engines.
In addition, he said their artificial intelligence division continues to work on Graph Search—Facebook’s own search engine—so that their data can be made available to users through it.
And third, he said when the product is complete, they will be rolling it out to mobile devices so that users are able to use voice recognition on their smartphones to ask Facebook for solutions to problems and advice.
However, Zuckerberg added that he doesn’t plan on dethroning Google overnight. He said their efforts will take about ten years to complete.
Graph Search has so far failed to take off , but it is design to offer a social twost on standard social results. For example, a user might ask it, “What are my friends’ favorite restaurants.” Google, on the other hand, wouldn’t necessarily have this data, plus it specializes in questions which have definite answers.
According to Zuckerberg, their first version of Graph Search indexed over a trillion connections between people, interests and events. The second version covered all of the updates people had made since the first version was released.
Analysis
Commenting on Facebook’s ambitions, Dr Markos Zachariadis Warwick Business School Assistant Professor of Information Systems Markos Zachariadis said: “Facebook has come a long way since its inception and is now much more than a place to ‘upload pics’. It is the largest social network in the world, but many are questioning whether it will survive another 10 years. Another innovation and network may come along to threaten its dominant position in the market, but Facebook is in a good position to expand and grow further, thus creating a strong ‘network effect’ and adding new services to keep users engaged.
“Its recent investment in mobile applications, which include the recently launched ‘Paper’ application in the US as well as the acquisition of Instagram, plus efforts to understand better and target the mobile advertising business can ensure it is around for another 10 years and beyond. I can see it going from strength to strength – predictions for population accessing the internet from mobile devices in 2017 is an impressive four billion!
“Facebook has a huge amount of data on its 1.23 billion users; lots of companies would pay a big premium to take advantage of that information, which has major implications for marketing. In the age of big data Facebook can capitalise on this user generated data for even better targeted advertising and marketing.
“Facebook has created a rich marketing ecosystem providing solutions for many organisations, who are eager to go beyond the occasional ad and keen to engage with their customers (it is a social network after all). Allowing developers to plug onto its platform through APIs (Application Programming Interface) is also a smart move by Facebook that opens the door to additional value propositions for its extensive user base. The successful examples of social gaming, and Zynga more specifically with the successful launch of FarmVille in June 2009, demonstrates the breadth of opportunity within the Facebook ecosystem – Zynga is now a $1.14bn revenue company and until last year 80 per cent of its revenue came from Facebook.
“Security and privacy are two of the most important elements for the success of social networking sites in the near future. Who has access to our digital footprint and the data that we generate throughout our interaction with social platforms are important issues most networks will need to address based on local laws and international regulations.”