Facebook Unveils New Search Tool - Wall Street Journal

By JOHN LETZING Facebook Inc. unveiled a new service Tuesday that enables its billions of users to search for specific data within the social site. Investors, perhaps anticipating a different sort of announcement, responded by trading shares of Facebook down nearly 3%. AP Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg introduced a new search feature called "Graph Search" Tuesday. Facebook had stirred a vast amount of speculation about what exactly it would be unveiling at its Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters during a scheduled media event. Guesses ranged from a search-related product to a branded mobile phone. Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said during the event that the new search tool is an early iteration and geared toward queries based on four "use cases:" people, photos, places and interests. For years, Facebook has been encouraging its members to add all sorts of information and photos to their profiles, while also tagging their interests through the site's "like" feature. Much of that data is now searchable using this new Graph Search feature, which began rolling out as a test Tuesday to a limited amount of users. The new tool will appear as a blue search bar at the top of the social network's site. Using it, a Facebook member could, for example, search for local restaurants liked by their friends, or photos posted by contacts within a specific time frame. Facebook also demonstrated a way the tool can find people outside of a social network, for example by asking for "People named Chris who are friends of Lars and who went to Stanford." In that case, only information that is displayed publicly will appear. The company stressed that the search tool might be valuable to recruiters, or for single people looking for more information on potential mates. Mr. Zuckerberg said the new search service won't initially be used to draw in search-advertising revenue. It also won't initially be available on mobile devices—where a growing number of users are tapping into the service. "This could potentially be a business over time, but for now we've really focused on building out this user experience," the CEO said. Search isn't an entirely new venture for Facebook, which has been publicly traded since May. The company previously has offered certain sponsored, or paid, search results on its site for offerings such as games. But as it expands its focus on search, Facebook may be able to further tap into a new and potentially lucrative search-advertising revenue stream, distinct from the company's core business of display advertising. Related Facebook Unveils Graph Search Facebook unveiled a Graph Search, a new feature that allows users to search within their networks. Could Graph Search take the place of LinkedIn, Yelp and OkCupid? George Stahl reports on digits. Photo: Facebook, Inc. Facebook today unveiled a new search tool that will allow users to more accurately search for things inside of the social network. Facebook say graph search will only search things that are publicly available. Photo: Facebook, Inc. According to data from eMarketer, search ad spending grew to about $17.6 billion last year from $15.1 billion in 2011 and "makes up the largest portion of digital advertising spending in the U.S." The new search tool also puts Facebook in more direct competition with Google Inc., which has been trying to tailor its search engine to display results that are related to what friends like by integrating it with its own social network, Google+. Facebook will also be using Microsoft Corp.'s Bing search engine for supplemental Web searches, essentially encouraging users to stay on its site. Mr. Zuckerberg sought to distinguish Facebook's Graph Search service from the traditional type of Web search offered by firms such as Google. "Graph search is a completely new way for people to get information on Facebook," Mr. Zuckerberg said. He noted that he personally had used the service to gather fellow admirers of the TV show "Game of Thrones." "We had a small Dothraki party," he said, referring to a type of character on the fantasy show. Write to John Letzing at john.letzing@dowjones.com via Technology - Google News http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNGd4TjRJvFG2qlMaOgl0hrATRd52Q&url=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323596204578243552054369798.html

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