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I’d like to know why they’re not in the search business. They have enough signal from their platforms to offer great personalized search results and it would al

by m_ke 7y ago

I’d like to know why they’re not in the search business. They have enough signal from their platforms to offer great personalized search results and it would allow them to grow their ad revenue with intent based ads.

enos_feedler 7y ago
The same reason why Apple is not in the search business even though search is a key part of the phone experience: someone else does the job really well. Facebook would need a way to differentiate the search experience. I don't think personalization is enough since Google personalizes too. I also don't think a company should build products for the _purpose_ of revenue. Revenue is the output of building a great product with a purpose for users. So I think it goes back to Facebook asking what unique purpose would it provide in it's search experience?
- m_ke 7y ago
  Facebook should get into the search business for the same reason that Apple is getting into the software subscription business, it's an obvious way to grow their business. Facebook already has the analytics in place from their share buttons, ad platform and user engagement on the feed to create a great ranking system. A lot of people already use instagram to search for restaurants, fashion, travel and products, same goes for facebook marketplace and business pages, all they'd need to do is expand the search bars in their apps to include web results. Tracking search queries would give them true intent data that they could use to improve their ad targeting across their whole ad platform. The only thing google has on facebook right now is the ability to let advertisers target search queries. (just did a google search and it looks like they're starting to add that option: https://www.facebook.com/business/news/reach-people-who-are-actively-shopping-with-ads-in-facebook-search-results https://www.facebook.com/business/news/reach-people-who-are-...)
vikramkr 7y ago
Because why would you use it over Google? That's a lot of effort to build and launch a likely poorly differentiated service that they'd need to spend a lot of money on to steal users from Google. Why would a user prefer Facebook to Google for search?
- m_ke 7y ago
  Because a huge portion of the world already spends all day on facebook, instagram and whatsapp. All they have to do is integrate web search into their apps. I'm sure they already have most of the web indexed and search history would give them amazing information about their users.

by m_ke 7y ago

enos_feedler 7y ago

The same reason why Apple is not in the search business even though search is a key part of the phone experience: someone else does the job really well. Facebook would need a way to differentiate the search experience. I don't think personalization is enough since Google personalizes too. I also don't think a company should build products for the _purpose_ of revenue. Revenue is the output of building a great product with a purpose for users. So I think it goes back to Facebook asking what unique purpose would it provide in it's search experience?

m_ke 7y ago
Facebook should get into the search business for the same reason that Apple is getting into the software subscription business, it's an obvious way to grow their business. Facebook already has the analytics in place from their share buttons, ad platform and user engagement on the feed to create a great ranking system. A lot of people already use instagram to search for restaurants, fashion, travel and products, same goes for facebook marketplace and business pages, all they'd need to do is expand the search bars in their apps to include web results. Tracking search queries would give them true intent data that they could use to improve their ad targeting across their whole ad platform. The only thing google has on facebook right now is the ability to let advertisers target search queries. (just did a google search and it looks like they're starting to add that option: https://www.facebook.com/business/news/reach-people-who-are-actively-shopping-with-ads-in-facebook-search-results https://www.facebook.com/business/news/reach-people-who-are-...)

vikramkr 7y ago

Because why would you use it over Google? That's a lot of effort to build and launch a likely poorly differentiated service that they'd need to spend a lot of money on to steal users from Google. Why would a user prefer Facebook to Google for search?

m_ke 7y ago
Because a huge portion of the world already spends all day on facebook, instagram and whatsapp. All they have to do is integrate web search into their apps. I'm sure they already have most of the web indexed and search history would give them amazing information about their users.