about their friends

The social network has expanded its search parameters: now you can find information about people from the friend list that they published on Facebook. However, the new product is currently only available to users in the USA. The new search model will help the company attract advertisers, experts say, and regain its position on the stock exchange.

Facebook will reveal to users the ins and outs of their friends. Where they were, what they did and with whom. The social network has introduced a new search model. She looks exclusively for data within Zuckerberg's creation itself. And he easily answers difficult questions, such as “Mexican restaurants in Palo Alto where my friends have been” or “what kind of music do Barack Obama supporters listen to.” The new product is currently available only to US residents. In Russia, it can appear only within a year, says leading analyst of the Russian Association of Electronic Communications Karen Kazaryan.

“The main problem is actually that the new Facebook search uses so-called natural language processing. Therefore, in its current form it exists only in English. As for all other countries, it will come in the form of English queries quite soon, now you can already turn on in beta. However, when everything will be extended to other languages, it’s quite difficult to say. I think that during this year we will see a gradual launch of the service in other countries,” says Kazaryan.

Social search can significantly improve the social network’s advertising situation, experts believe. Potentially, the new product can even correct the financial failure of Facebook after the IPO, says Alexander Baulin, head of the IT and telecom department of Expert magazine.

"That's hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising that will be content driven, that will be relevant to search queries. This is comparable to Facebook's current revenues, so it will be an increase, maybe doubling, of Facebook's revenues if the service works well. Doubling revenues increases the value of the shares the company by half, so, roughly speaking, he can win back his decline,” Baulin is sure.

When launching the product, the social network also took care of legal protection from potential claims from users, experts are sure. It is better to check your privacy settings in advance, noted Vasily Terletsky, general director of Copyright.ru.

“It is very correct if all users of a social network understand that the information they give out about their interests and their location is publicly available. This is the main condition of many social networks, which they both declare and stipulate in the user agreement.

I don’t think there can be any problems when the social network itself uses this same information for the benefit of all users of the social network,” Terletsky believes.

In addition to the new search, Facebook will also keep the old version of the regular search engine. The necessary information, without leaving the social network, will continue to be provided by the Microsoft Bing technology engine.

Alexey Kiselev

Facebook will tell users everything