Facebook’s much-hyped announcement of its new Graph Search will probably be the biggest news in the tech sector this Spring. Not only does it have the “wow ” factor — an intuitive search tool that doesn’t require commas or brackets to search through an almost infinite number of categories — it also has the potential to change how Facebook collects revenue permanently. Some are even predicting that it could actually kill Google. But will it?
The short answer is no. But it will cause the so-called “gateway to the web” some severe headaches. People retain and use information better if they can contextualize it, and nothing contextualizes a search term like a friend’s endorsement. In that sense, Facebook’s Graph Search is going to be best way to find friend endorsements, hands down.
Then there’s the fact that Facebook data isn’t stored on a Google server. Bing can’t distinguish itself from Google because both ultimately search the same web. Facebook, on the other hand, searches data that neither Google nor Bing can touch.
But we need to remember:
- Google is drawing a significant amount of data from the incredibly popular Google Chrome, Google Maps, Google Ads, and YouTube. It may, in time, simply not need Facebook’s data at all.
- Google has Droid and Chrome OS. These are new systems that can generate revenue for the company that is completely independent of search queries.
- Finally, after becoming profitable in the late 90s, Google expanded to almost all parts of the internet. Facebook search is a very big fish in its own pond (Facebook.com), but Google is the giant whale guarding the massive ocean of data known as the web.
What do you think? Is Google’s downfall only a matter of time? Could Facebook ultimately become a division of Google?
P.S. Yes, Graph Search will allow random strangers to pull information from your page, but you can keep that at least some of that from happening. Check out this CIO.com article to find out how to change your privacy settings to lock down parts of your profile from Graph Search.