Yesterday Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder and CEO, introduced Graph Search, a social search engine integrated into the social network. It doesn’t search the web but the among Facebook’s contacts to find everything that has been shared with them inside it. Therefore, it’s a custom search as it takes place within your own network.

Actually, for the moment Graph Search is in beta test and is available for a small amount of people using Facebook in American English. If you go to the page dedicated to this new service, you can still sign to receive e message when you can start using it.

Mark Zuckerberg emphasized the difference from Google, evidently with the intention of demonstrating that he wants to offer a different service. In recent years, various search engines were born that have been proposed as alternatives to Google, how many of them do you remember?

Sure, Facebook has more than one billion users and this is a huge advantage compared to anyone who wants to compete with Google starting from scratch but it’s clear that today it’s more important than ever to be social. Even Google has created its own ecosystem centered around the social networks Google+ therefore Facebook had to introduce something new which was very socially oriented.

Graph Search allows you to search for information among those that Facebook users have shared. The issue of privacy is always sensitive on this social network therefore it’s clear that they wanted to emphasize the fact that only public information will be used. In your own network it will be possible to search for people, photographs, places and interests by defining the various criteria.

An element to be verified will be the impact at commercial level. How many people will seek business used by friends instead of asking for advice directly? Probably it will depend on how many users will be using Graph Search regularly.

Mark Zuckerberg tried to create an event around the announcement of Graph Search but at Wall Street the reception was cold. Facebook’s shares have in fact lost more than 2% in contrast to a growth in early 2013. Obviously, the success of Graph Search will have to be assessed in long-term, after it becomes available to all users, therefore, a true judgment will be given only in a few months.

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