~ Graph Search ~

The post is response to today's Facebook Graph Search event. Verge coverage. Engadget coverage. My initial reaction to this was: 

Facebook + Bing = Graph Search.

Basically they are adding more functionality to their Graph API to search not just your own feed but now amongst your connections. Technically if I have you on my friends' list, I can build a tool to snoop what you did, liked, watched, attended, checkins, etc.

Am not sure if Facebook is getting Evil or not. Zuck said that Graph Search is privacy aware. Om nailed it well, "Graph Search is privacy aware, says Zuck. Of course, that is private till Facebook needs to make money off it".

Facebook owns the data - Connections, Likes, CheckIns, Comments, Shares, etc. They already know a majority of this. Graph Search is more of an indexing feature which gets the results faster & they have opened this up to Users. 

Zuck says no ads for now. Am sure advertisers are waiting to pour in money to squeeze their ads in between the trillion connections which the Graph Search aims to resolve.

BTW, Google has integrated web search into their Gmail service for quite sometime. I have never done a single Google search from Gmail fromt the time this feature has been there. Going with that factor I doubt people would switch to #GraphSearch over #WebSearch. 

There is a lot of potential for snooping amongst the friends on what they are reading, listening, doing, visiting, etc. 

Recommendations or Promotions for a targeted audience is where I feel Graph Search will fit. Don't think people would like Ads being poped up every now & then. 

Graph Search brings competition Yelp, Google, LinkedIn, Dating Sites, Good Reads, etc.

What do you think -

1) Have you used Google Search from your Gmail Account?

2) Will you use Graph Search in FB to search something on web?

3) In general about Graph Search?

Updates:

Wired has a good article - Facebook’s Bold, Compelling and Scary Engine of Discovery: The Inside Story of Graph Search Interesting to note that two Ex-Googlers have helped build Graph Search.