Prediction: Facebook Will Enter the Search Market Next Year

It's obvious that FB would want to enter the search market, and the post doesn't even mention the biggest reason: search ads are more valuable than social ads.<p>And I think the obvious reason for that is: Ads on a social network are basically spam. They're explicitly trying to distract you from what you're doing. Search ads augment your search and harness your intent. Google gives you things you might actually be looking for when you're looking for it.[1]<p>And also, I don't think social search is as important as people think. The whole point of harnessing the power of the entire web for search results is getting stuff that we didn't have access to before the internet. I've always been able to ask my friends their opinion. The web lets me ask experts on the specific subject at hand.<p>Why <i>wouldn't</i> FB want to do this? Because FB doesn't really want to send people away. They never have. Everything they do is designed to keep you on the site, and their external stuff is designed to draw you in.<p>Also, it's super hard (which the post does mention). Which makes me think it's way more likely that Google will eat FB's lunch than the other way around. Seems to me that Google already has a lot of FB's tech/infrastructure built, while FB has much less of Google's.<p>[1]: I've written about what a weird position this is, though: <a href="http://blog.byjoemoon.com/post/7590977101/googles-existential-crisis" rel="nofollow">http://blog.byjoemoon.com/post/7590977101/googles-existentia...</a>

The idea of using social graph data, somehow, in calculating search relevance is a nice idea, but you have to avoid incorrect assumptions like "You will like the things your social connections like."<p>StumbleUpon has used social graph data for a while, to make website recommendations (but they're not a general-purpose search engine):<p><a href="http://www.stumbleupon.com/technology/" rel="nofollow">http://www.stumbleupon.com/technology/</a><p>Ness is seems to be using social graph information, in a clever way, to make restaurant recommendations:<p><a href="http://www.building43.com/videos/2011/08/25/ness-personalized-search-results/" rel="nofollow">http://www.building43.com/videos/2011/08/25/ness-personalize...</a><p>To me, the taste graph (a phrase coined by Hunch, I think) is much more interesting than the social graph, as an extra source of relevancy information. It you know my tastes, and you know the taste graph, then you can say what else I might like (with probabilities).<p>Will Facebook or Google ever use these additional sources of relevancy information? My bets are on Google.

<i>He is an angel investor in media and e-commerce companies.</i><p>I wonder if he has invested (or plans to invest) in Facebook? Full disclosure would be nice.<p><i>Next year, search advertising will be a $15 billion market in the U.S. alone, growing by 14 percent, according to eMarketer. And, if Facebook can capture half the share of that market that Google has today, it could easily add an extra $25 billion or even far more to its value.</i><p>Is it just me or does the math not add up. If search advertising is $15B next year, how can Facebook add $25B of value if it takes 50% of the market share? I assume he means globally (versus the $15B residing in the US alone), but with those kinds of numbers, he's got to back it up somehow otherwise he's just pulling them out of the air.

This whole article is predicated on "social search" being better than pagerank-scored search, which is only sometimes the case.<p>Sometimes I care what my friends think about a search query, e.g., "sushi restaurants near foo." It might help me to know that my friend Bob, who I trust, has been somewhere and thought it was good.<p>Sometimes I do not care at all what my friends think about a search query, e.g., "medulla oblongata." In fact, showing results that my friends might have liked in connection with that phrase may distract from the scientific information I am looking for, especially if they are pages of quotes from Fight Club.<p>Being able to distinguish this intent, and putting a good UX on top of it, is what Facebook needs to do to make a significant entry into the search market. (I'm not holding my breath.)

Speculation. And a bad idea. Facebook is good in social "notworking", and competing with Google in Google's territory is not a good idea. Since we're in the field of speculation, I predict a huge loss of money.

Microsoft may be less than pleased, given the level of Bing integration right now.<p>In fact, Bing already exists as a Facebook-augmented search engine. I don't use it, but I find the concept fascinating as it's one of the few places that is using Facebook's <i>massive</i> data store of all the pages and sites that users have 'like'd.

Search is about taking you to the place you want to go to; facebook really wants to be the interesting place.<p>Their whole strategy seems to center on making sure everything in the web is a gateway to facebook but that facebook itself is where the fun is at. See for example those boxes websites can use saying "such and such friend liked such and such article"; they take you to facebook, never out of it. I really don't see entering search as something they should even want to do.

Facebook has already entered the search market. Any pages that have like buttons and the proper meta tags are index and can be reached through search in Facebook.

Entering the search market would require hundreds of employees and a significant upfront capital expenditure. Without going public, I don't think there is any question--they will not enter search.<p>If they go public, then it depends on the opportunity costs. Is there a better place for ~5Billion dollar investment? Probably yes. Two things come to mind; an ad distribution network and a 'social' browser.

I guess we'll be seeing this prediction every year until it either comes true or Facebook ceases to exist as a company.

.. and will probably fail just as google failed/ing? with social networks.<p>If you want to dominate an existing market, you have to put everything you have into into it (+ new idea), and that might not be enough.

I said the same thing when they came out with the "like" button last year. Liking something is just a new-fangled way of doing page / domain ranking.