

Prediction: Facebook Will Enter the Search Market Next Year - ayanb
http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/26/prediction-facebook-will-enter-the-search-market-next-year/

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joebadmo
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.

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]

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.

Why _wouldn't_ 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.

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.

[1]: I've written about what a weird position this is, though:
[http://blog.byjoemoon.com/post/7590977101/googles-
existentia...](http://blog.byjoemoon.com/post/7590977101/googles-existential-
crisis)

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troymc
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."

StumbleUpon has used social graph data for a while, to make website
recommendations (but they're not a general-purpose search engine):

<http://www.stumbleupon.com/technology/>

Ness is seems to be using social graph information, in a clever way, to make
restaurant recommendations:

[http://www.building43.com/videos/2011/08/25/ness-
personalize...](http://www.building43.com/videos/2011/08/25/ness-personalized-
search-results/)

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).

Will Facebook or Google ever use these additional sources of relevancy
information? My bets are on Google.

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typicalrunt
_He is an angel investor in media and e-commerce companies._

I wonder if he has invested (or plans to invest) in Facebook? Full disclosure
would be nice.

 _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._

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.

~~~
erikpukinskis
If Facebook were to get similar margins to Google, then they'd earn $2B in
profit on $7.5B in revenues. $25B of value on $2B profit is a 12.5 P/E ratio,
which is quite conservative, given search is still an emerging market, and
quite strategic for them.

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pak
This whole article is predicated on "social search" being better than
pagerank-scored search, which is only sometimes the case.

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.

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.

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.)

~~~
joebadmo
Honestly, even the sushi restaurants example is questionable to me. I think a
better algorithm would check to see what/what kind of restaurants I liked in
the past, compare that with other people with similar taste, and give me a
suggestion. Netflix recommendation for food.

It's what I've always wanted from Yelp and Urban Spoon, but never got. It
seemed like Google's Hotpot was going there, but that seems to have fizzled. I
guess it's not one of the arrows that Larry Page chose.

But back to the point, that's not a social algorithm. It's not a page-rank one
either, but I'd expect Google to be better at this than FB.

~~~
c0riander
Kind of like Ness? "Pandora for restaurants" according to GigaOm:
<http://gigaom.com/2011/08/25/ness-restaurant-app/>

Haven't tried it yet but saw it on HN just yesterday!

~~~
joebadmo
Yes, exactly, but i'm not an IOS user. Even a Web client would be nice.

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trbecker
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.

~~~
colintan
I agree. Facebook's strategy ought to be to lock down and defend their niche
in social networking. The signs seem to indicate a greater emphasis on
connecting person to person: I predict more location and mobile-based
features, and more aggressive expansion in developing markets.

Only then would a search product make sense, though it would be tempting to
rush it out as a partnership with Bing.

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untog
Microsoft may be less than pleased, given the level of Bing integration right
now.

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 _massive_ data store of all the pages and sites that users
have 'like'd.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
Good point. If people aren't using Facebook/Bing, what makes you think they'll
use Facebook search? Unless they replace the front page with a search box
bing/google style no one will notice the difference.

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alextp
Search is about taking you to the place you want to go to; facebook really
wants to be the interesting place.

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.

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joshontheweb
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.

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brg
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.

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.

~~~
finisterre
Facebook don't need to take on the huge capital cost of launching a search
engine. They can take advantage of the fact that Microsoft already did.

Facebook can enter the search market by deepening the connection between its
data and Bing's technology, and then making some UI changes.

~~~
tytso
Um, and if they do that, who takes the profits from the search engine?
Microsoft, who has "invested" billions and billions of dollars and who would
presumably like to recoup some or all of their losses, or Facebook? And if
that's the case, how much value does that add to Facebook again? It's an
interesting and open question, but methinks predictions that Facebook would
get all of the profits, when Microsoft has put in the all or most of the
capital costs of a money-losing search engine system, seem to be a little hard
to believe, don't you think? And that's of course assuming Microsoft can be
successful in search, which has yet to be seen at least from a business
perspective...

~~~
finisterre
I didn't claim that Facebook would take all the profits in such a scenario. Of
course Microsoft would have a valid claim to some profits from a joint
venture, the two companies would strike a deal over the exact split. As has
been noted in other threads, though, even a small share of the search market
can be worth a lot.

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

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Sigi
.. and will probably fail just as google failed/ing? with social networks.

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.

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puredemo
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.

