As a great surprise to nobody, Facebook launched its own take on search Yesterday. It’s actually a really cool service - you search for “pictures of my friends in New York” and it will diligently go away and get you all of the pictures you have permission to see, of your friends, in New York. Very good, and really useful (though I fear it’ll be most useful for pervy folk and paranoid partners.)
However, as is always the way in the tech press, speculation is rife that this is going to take a “huge chunk” of searches - and thus revenues - away from Google. I disagree.
Whilst Graph Search is a great first step in search, I think that in its current incarnation, it’ll actually compliment Google. I can see people using Facebook as a friend-based research tool, doing searches like “places my friends have been on holiday this year.” From there, you’d pick your place of choice, and then Google “hotels in XXXX,” “flights to XXXX” to actually do the work of *booking</em> *said holiday.
What do you think? Can you see yourself replacing any of your regular Google activity with Facebook’s new search?
