Thoughts on the Facebook Graph Search – Rochkirstin

Last January 15, 2013, Facebook has announced its newly “cooked meal,” after the Facebook Timeline. I bet many will shout their criticisms out versus Facebook again, for the continuous updates released over the years. The Facebook community has been stunned when the Facebook Timeline first came out. Probably mostly of resistance to change, many had expressed their dislikes but still use Facebook anyway.

Now, are you ready for Facebook’s Graph Search?

Since last week, Facebook’s Graph Search has been getting all the buzz from users. Like the Facebook Timeline, Facebook selects users who want to try out this new “gimmick” and invite them to conduct the initial pilot testing. These users are encouraged to provide their comments – both positive and negative are accepted.

As an active member of this social networking site, I already sent a request to Facebook to enlist me as one of the first to experience this new Graph Search (in beta).

I expect that interface will be affected a lot, and people would have to re-learn how to use Facebook. Another anticipation is that through the Facebook Graph Search, anyone can have visibility on every user-generated data made on Facebook. And every information posted can be combined with another from the same person, to interpret those pieces and show a meaningful conclusion.

While this will definitely useful for digital marketers and entrepreneurs to know more about the backgrounds of their potential leads and target market, this might pose harm to private individuals who use Facebook profusely without the intention of showcasing all their “secrets” to “dangerous cyberstalkers.”

As a user, you don’t need to ask your friends for their opinions on what books to read, what their recommended movies are or what things to buy. Since the Facebook database inputs all these information, you can easily access them (if shown to Friends) by searching through the “graph.” As a business owner, this is great to expand your market and increase traffic to your website. Note that Facebook Graph Search is not made to be a competitor to Google, Yahoo or other search engines as it only presents input from Facebook users’ profiles.

One may argue that even without the advent of this new tool, Facebook is one huge sea of cyberstalkers anyway. Because it does not show “Who Has Viewed My Profile,” it gives people more confidence to search and read through profiles of others more frequently. End result? Cyberstalking became the least deviant behavior.

Do expect that the results of the Graph Search will be dominated by shares and likes of your friends who are perpetually online and those who post status updates incessantly whose attention span can match those of hamsters. Information presented would mostly consist of people’s interests and experiences, businesses or events visited by your friends and media and entertainment liked or watched by them.

To know more about reviews of trusted sites, check these out: CNet, Forbes, Venture Beat, and Tech Crunch.

Here are some more screen shots of a demo searching friends who studied at DLSU: