Facebook’s patent for ‘search’ should be of interest to google
Facebook obtained a patent about 4 weeks ago relating to search tags and social media, initially everyone thought this was pretty insignificant, but, the SEO industry is now starting to think it’s far more interesting. After all, we all know the problems of trying to find anything on traditional search engines such as google, Bing, Yahoo etc, but, imagine if Facebook provided you in effect with recommendations from your ‘friends’! Now obviously, most of us only have a few (well in Amy’s case, a few hundred!) friends, but, if Facebook follow LinkedIn‘s process of ‘secondary’ and even ‘third’ link friends, ie friends of friends, of friends, even ‘norman no-mates’ like me would soon be getting recommendations from hundreds of thousands of people. And, whilst Dental Design are brilliant at promoting our dentist’s and their dental practice’s web sites on all the key search engines, this development will need us to be putting our thinking caps on, which needless to say, we’re on the case with!
Bnet’s original article ‘New Facebook Patent: the Huge Implications of Curated Search’
For some time, Facebook has been interested in semantic search — using its social graph and immense amount of information about its users to deliver search results. Some have dismissed the effort, but that’s premature and doesn’t take into account what Facebook could do with a new hybrid: automatically curated search.
A patent granted last month to Facebook describes an approach to search that combines any type of search engine results with the popularity of each result among members of a user’s social network. Although some thought the patent was on photo tags, it isn’t. The implications are actually quite broad and could affect conventional search; specialty interest search topics like travel; publishing; and e-commerce; just to name a few.
The patent is called Visual tags for search results generated from social network information. Here’s the simple abstract:
Search results, including sponsored links and algorithmic search results, are generated in response to a query, and are marked based on frequency of clicks on the search results by members of social network who are within a predetermined degree of separation from the member who submitted the query. The markers are visual tags and comprise either a text string or an image.
In other words, Facebook would combine search results for a user with how others connected to the user in a social network responded to the same search results. If most people clicked on a handful of results, the user could see those links with some visual indication of their relative popularity. The system would work either fielding requests from third parties or for with the social network creating or obtaining the search results and delivering them to users.
Although this could apply in some ways to tags on photos displayed on the web, many who looked at the patent were apparently misdirected by the term “visual tags.” (I’ll confess to having originally glossed over the patent myself.) But when you actually read it, what comes across is instant automatic search curation.
Some critics have largely dismissed Facebook’s efforts in semantic search, assuming that what Facebook could offer would pale to the depth and breadth of Google (GOOG) or Microsoft (MSFT) actually crawling the web.
Now’s the time to erase the misconception. Facebook knows that recommendations are key tools in marketing. This is the automated version of word of mouth that is supposed to sit atop search engines.
Facebook has also expanded the concept of relationship to multiple degrees of separation. Instead of your 30 or 100 or 400 connected friends, which might not be enough to get useable results, Facebook can expand the definition of the social network, much the way that LinkedIn does. If you have a couple of hundred direct connections, expanding to two degrees of separation can easily net you tens of thousands of people that are likely somewhat similar to the user in question.
Search sounds limited, but it isn’t when you realize that many activities on the Web could be said to involve search and clicking a like button could be said to clicking a link. Want to buy a book? You search for a title at a reseller like Amazon (AMZN) or Barnes & Noble (BN). Want to read something? Here’s a list of articles, voted by your connections, no matter what publication created the content. Want to buy something? Here are the recommended items and where you can purchase them.
The patent turns a social network and its relations into a way to augment search of any type. Given the frustrations many have with being overwhelmed by search results, Facebook has a potential huge advantage over search companies. It may also have locked down a monetarily valuable aspect of social network data that none of its direct competitors have capitalized on. This is one strategically brilliant company.
Original article posted on Bnet.com by Erik Sherman, and recreated here with thanks by Dental Design
More posts from our team
Five Star
Reviewed Marketing
"Would definitely recommend to a friend"
"I cannot recommend Dental Design highly enough"
"Really great company to deal with"
"Very professional, efficient & adaptive to new situations"
"I cannot recommend them highly enough"
"Has been invaluable and gone out of her way to help us"
"We love the look of our practice website. Very professional!"
"Dental Design stood out both in their knowledge of the industry and their professionalism"
"The team and package offered at dental design was unrivalled"
"absolutely fantastic and are always on hand to help"
"Dental Design are fantastic to work with"
"always met with a swift and professional response"
