Map search: Farewell keyword, search way colloquial

Absrtact: In the world of speculation, social media giant Facebook (Facebook) January 15 High-profile unveiled a mysterious new product of the veil map search. This is the biggest move that Facebook has made since the IPO last May, with a product launch from Facebook

In a swirl of speculation, Facebook, the social media giant, January 15 unveiled the veil of mystery new products--the map search. This is the biggest move since Facebook was questioned in May last year, and the product launch was presided over by Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg.

The launch of the new search function seems to have frustrated expectations, compared with previous media speculation about the "release of Facebook phones." On Wall Street, Facebook shares fell 2.7% on the day, seemingly not bullish on the short-term economic outlook for new features. But it can not be ignored that the face of 1 billion users of Facebook through the new search function to dig its long reserves of information "gold", not only related to Facebook's "money", but also affect the social media era of business models and people's online behavior habits.

Farewell keyword, search way colloquial

"Atlas Search", the new name sounds like a technical fan, seems to be tailor-made for Internet professionals, in fact, it pays more attention to the average user experience, allowing people to query in natural language, not just a single keyword.

Mr. Zuckerberg, for example, said in the press conference: "Who are my best friends in San Francisco?" The map search soon gave him a list of his friends in the city, and his sister was in the front line, arranged by the closeness of the relationship.

The map search is defined as "a search that is closely related to users," which answers very specific questions, but focuses on four aspects of people, places, pictures, and hobbies, which are the four main dimensions of user-related relationships on social networking sites. As to the "interest" function, you can enter "My friends like movies" or "My Friends like TV series" and other key words, will get the answer directly.

Users can do more simple searches, such as "photos of my friends," and can also query more complex, narrowing the range of searches such as "My friends in California, photos uploaded last year."

So how does the new search function work in real life? Zuckerberg recently hosted a party around the popular American drama "The Song of Ice and Fire," and all of his friends are from the search list, just ask your social networking site: "Who in my best friend in Palo likes the song of Ice and Fire?"

Of course, the new search feature was a "very difficult" technical challenge for engineers, who developed more than a year. "I once thought it wouldn't happen," Zuckerberg said. "It's a very complex thing, but it's also one of the coolest things we've ever done." ”

Industry insiders believe that the map search means that the search engine understand the relationship between people, places and things, rather than just understand the key words. Ollen Ezony, a computer science professor at the University of Washington, said it was a watershed event. Other companies have tried social search, but not as much as Facebook.

Fill in the blanks of Google search

As early as the Atlas search is not formally exposed, the outside world has been the world's largest search engine Google (Google) for all-round comparison.

If Google has done its best to search for vast amounts of information, Facebook is trying to find a way to do it in more humane social search. At this stage there is no positive competition and conflict, or rather, Facebook is trying to fill Google's lack of attention to search gaps.

In a simple contrast, Google can tell you exactly what "the tallest 10 peaks in the world" are, and in the Atlas search you can search "who among my friends likes Star Wars and Harry Potter?"

As a result, Google still has an absolute advantage in searching for a website or looking for information and libraries. But Facebook has top secret information--social data--that 50多亿次 activities every day. such as questions about the preferences of their friends, these Google are unable to provide the answer. Of course, Google has long been aware of the potential of social network search services, so the company is also developing a social function that integrates Google Plus.

In fact, Facebook has also started working with Microsoft's search engine, Bing, to develop search capabilities. When users search for a keyword in the Facebook search box and click on "More results", they can choose the web search function provided by Bing. At the same time, the return data from Facebook will appear more in search results on the Bing page.

Industry insiders believe that even if Facebook does not search the Internet for all sites like Google, it can become a useful search engine. Facebook's information about the user's data and activities can meet the daily needs of most users.

However, the current Atlas search is still in the early stages of development, only to a small number of English users open to their limited content search. For Zuckerberg now, building a Facebook search engine is not a difficult task, and the key is how to get users to use it.

The next big money cow in search engine industry?

In recent years, the competition between Facebook and Google has been escalating, with two companies vying for advertisers and computer engineers for almost any confrontation. So why does Zuckerberg have to choose the search service that rivals are best at?

During the more than 20 years of the internet boom, business models were always based on advertising. Google's entrepreneurial purpose is to collect information, its profits from the purchase of search keywords advertisers. The query results of each word have many companies advertising in Google, that is to say keyword search can bring value.

The New York Times pointed out that in the online advertising industry, search accounted for the largest share of revenue, which is Google's profits to 10 times times the reason for Facebook. As such, a slight advance into the search field could bring a staggering profit to the social network.

The discovery of the Atlas may lead to the impact of the traditional network advertising mode: The past ads from people active search, through the user search keywords more accurate to find the target customers; The map search is relatively passive, through the relationship between friends to guide people to make decisions. This new pattern of search offers a range of potential services, and may also cover areas such as online recruitment, dating, catering and shopping, which means that the traditional business model of providing these services is being readjusted.

For example, when you first come to a city trip and want to find a local restaurant, the traditional approach is to type keywords into a search engine, but in the social networking age, people are more likely to choose where their friends say "like". Because people are more likely to trust the recommendations of their friends around. On the other hand, making decisions based on a friend's recommendation is also more likely to add to the conversation in a friend's circle. When choosing a brand on the Internet, it is also possible to refer to your friends ' experiences.

Of course, whether the new search model can be translated into actual advertising profits will take time to test. Google's search service and core search advertising business are not at risk for the time being, says Courtes Abraham, a former sales director. Needless to say, Google is using googleplus and other related measures to get a lot of social data. However, if the Atlas search ads "can achieve even a part of the search efficiency, they can become a huge cash cow."

More sharing or more closure

Now, though, Facebook may be the first to face concerns about its users ' privacy policies. Especially when the Atlas search greatly improves the user experience, it also attracts the close attention of the privacy-protecting people.

Wired magazine points out that for some people, Atlas search may be a frightening experience. If someone is worried about someone who is looking for a "single woman/Male Near Me," pop out their face and personal information.

In this respect, Facebook product Management Director, one of the map search developers Tom Stoky stressed: Search results will only show users willing to share content. If users only set their personal information to be shared with their friends, they will not appear in the search results of the social graph search.

But the question is whether people are fully aware of this when they share information; and once everyone really understands it, when they know that the photos, interests, and personal information they share on Facebook are now part of a new product that might make it more frequent for others to see that data, What happens next is full of unknowns.

The link says there are two possible consequences: will it encourage people to share more, express themselves more broadly, or even attract the creation of a new relationship they desire? Or will it cause them to share less, and to keep themselves closed in their privacy settings so that they don't get caught up in the new gaze of the atlas search?

Jennifer Fan Grove, a leading tech columnist, believes that social networks and new ways of searching will constantly change internet habits. The next generation of social networking users is more concerned about whether a service can meet their needs, making them more prominent in themselves or more prominent in nature, rather than focusing more on privacy.

But research has also shown that Facebook users are increasingly cautious about sharing information online, especially when teachers and bosses often browse students and subordinates ' Facebook files. A survey of 500 young people by Northwestern University in the summer of 2012 shows that most people do not publish status updates because they do not know who they will see. The survey also found that many people deleted the information published, prohibit contact people to browse their information, nearly two-thirds of people did not mark a photo, posted a message or signed in a place.

Facebook's vice-president for global communications and public policy, Elliott Schrach, a former Google executive, said the company would give its options to the users. He expects users to be divided into two groups: one that does not want to be found, and the other is genuinely interested. It will be a very interesting thing to look at the proportions of the new search when it's done.