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.

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-existential-crisis http://blog.byjoemoon.com/post/7590977101/googles-existentia...