Social search is a type of web search that has been touted as the basis of the search engine of the future. Many have attempted to tackle the challenge of social search but so far all have failed. Back in March of last year, Will M of AllFacebook interviewed Aditya Agarwal, Director of Search Engineering at Facebook, about the future of Facebook’s social search. Aditya hit on some of the core competitive advantages that Facebook has over other social search engines, the primary advantage being Facebook’s accurate mapping of the social graph.
Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday Erick Schonfeld posted that Google should buy Facebook. He admitted that it was something that probably won’t happen but asserted that Facebook and Google should partner together to integrate people search and general web search. Yes, Google has the upper hand when it comes to search but Microsoft is investing heavily in search and I would argue that their “investment” in Facebook at the ridiculous $15 billion valuation, was not an investment but merely a down payment.
Read the rest of this entry »

GazoPa, the image match search, has just announced its new Facebook application enabling you to search photos on the social network based on similarity attributions. A venture project launched by Hitachi, GazoPa is still in private beta and requires an invite code to test out the service.

As an image match search, GazoPa lets you search for images based on keyword, photos you’ve uploaded, or basic images you’ve drawn directly on GazoPa’s site. GazoPa will find similar images based on color and shape, among other things.
Read the rest of this entry »

In the world of online advertising one company reigns supreme: Google. There is rapidly eroding competition in the search market and given that search is the number one source for monetization, it’s difficult to picture Google in the weak and struggling position that we see Yahoo! today. Google brought in over $16 billion in revenue last year and is on pace to surpass $20 billion this year.

So with Google in the position of king of the hill most have already begun seeking the next Google. So which company are most people in the Valley putting their money on? Facebook of course! That’s one of the reasons Facebook has achieved such a ridiculous valuation. It’s clear that the secret to monetization has not been solve and while in the next two years Facebook could potentially become a billion a year company, it still has a ways to go.

At $20 billion a year and growing Google has attracted a $132 billion valuation (as of yesterday’s stock price which has been pummeled recently) while the most recent Facebook valuations are around $4 billion (according to rumored stock sale prices). So is this a discount then comparatively speaking? Actually based on a revenue multiple Facebook is still overvalued but the shareholders buying stock from insiders are looking for rapid growth.

At this point everything with Facebook is speculation but everybody is hoping that there will be that breakthrough technology which turns social media into the next search. Many in this industry are betting heavily that social media will be the next search. I’m becoming increasingly skeptical myself though.

It’s Hard to Value User Generated Content

User generated content (UGC) has been one of the most challenging items to monetize on the web. While search has helped individuals monetize their sites, users on sites like Facebook, Wikipedia and others don’t have an opportunity to monetize the content they generate. While YouTube has developed systems for video content creators to generate revenue from attracting views, most users don’t generate any revenue.

When everybody is producing content and inventory becomes limitless how do you value what advertisements should cost? That’s a challenge facing the entire industry and ultimately advertising professionals simply consult advertisers on what the best locations are for advertising. The reality is that infinite inventory is going to continue to dilute the value of banner advertising and currently there is one premium alternative.

The Key to Becoming the Next Google: Search

Whether it’s social media or search we are still looking for the most efficient way to find content. Whether that information is about our friends or the world in general we want a way to discover what we are looking for. While social discovery is a great tool the ultimate tool for finding content remains to be search. As many people will point out, social discovery doesn’t work very well unless you have a highly active group of contacts.

If users aren’t sharing interesting news stories via Facebook, then most their friends won’t receive valuable content. That’s a big problem and it’s a fundamental flaw with the social discovery solution that so many social media evangelists give regular praise to. So if social discovery isn’t the core feature that will help Facebook monetize their site what is?

As I wrote a couple weeks ago, Facebook search provides a great monetization opportunity. With all of Facebook’s traffic, millions of users are actively leveraging search to find friends as well as products. There’s a good chance that a small fraction of users are also entering broad queries into their search box. All that’s stopping Facebook from becoming a search engine is user education.

If users know that they can search directly from within Facebook for anything, there’s a good chance that they could start using it for that purpose. This doesn’t mean that Facebook should change their vision for the company but in the short time there is a ton of opportunity for the site as it applies to search, an area that Facebook has come nowhere near perfecting.

With Search Can Facebook Become the Next Google?

If Facebook starts spending more time focusing on features that would compete with Facebook, is there the potential for them to become the next Google? Definitely! For example, Facebook’s messaging system leaves a lot to be desired but one feature where they hit the nail on the head is with message attachments. With email, the only thing you can attach currently is files but with Facebook you can attach any object created by third-party applications.

According to a couple people I’ve spoken with, Google may actually soon open up an API to Gmail which would transform the service to have similar features that Facebook currently provides for messages. That doesn’t mean Facebook can’t compete, the only problem facing them is a lack of developer resources. That’s the same problem facing them in developing a search solution.

This lack of resources may also explain Microsoft’s massive investment in the company which gave them a $15 billion valuation. Microsoft is struggling to become a leader in online search and Facebook could provide them with that opportunity. So if Facebook can develop a robust search solution and a more efficient messaging platform, will Facebook become the next Google (as it applies to valuation)?

I think there is still the potential. What do you think? Does Facebook + Search + Robust Messaging System = The Next Google?

This article has been republished from the Social Times.

According to this July’s comscore data the fastest growing locations for search are Facebook and MySpace. MySpace had 539 million searches and Facebook had 173 million and posted 20 and 10 percent growth, respectively. My guess is that these searches are only domestic searches which would account for the large difference. Whatever the case is these numbers are far below Google’s search volume which fell just under 10 billion searches for the month with 4 percent monthly growth.

Last week I suggested that Facebook has a huge search monetization opportunity and this solidifies that argument. Facebook has a ways to go before it catches up to the large search giants (aka Google) but they are almost a quarter of the size of AOL in terms of search and almost half the size of eBay which has a shopping system which is practically built on search.

As the Wall Street Journal higlighted today, search is dominating advertising with the most growth. The article suggests there is as an increasing gap between search an other advertising models (primarily banner). Social advertising is a new form of medium though so growth is hard to measure, especially since Facebook and other social networks don’t publicly release their ad revenue.

While MySpace and Facebook are searching for non-traditional advertising methods online, their quick path to profitability may be staring them in the face. Then again Google’s search deal with MySpace has been under-performing according to Google. This is troubling news considering that MySpace accounts for more searches then eBay, Craigslist, Facebook and Amazon at this point.

It will be interesting to see how the advertising battle plays out but given that social advertising is still such a nascent industry, one can only expect to see growth. We have seen a massive influx of new social advertising solutions and according to people I’ve been speaking with there are more that are about to hit the market.

While most of the market is out experimenting it may be time for Facebook and other large social networks to try what has worked for the past decade: search.

This afternoon I got to thinking about various opportunities for businesses to leverage Facebook and realized that Facebook is not taking advantage of one of their greatest opportunities: search. A few months ago, Microsoft announced that they were going to begin offering Microsoft Live search results for Facebook as well as search ads. So far nothing has been implemented.

The most important search results on Facebook is people but many users are regularly search for specific products and services within Facebook yet those products and services are not the first results that are displayed. Most often you need to click on the “Pages” tab to find any of the brands or services. In the case that it’s a person, a fan page will regularly show up but this only appears to occur for people.

So how could Facebook help businesses leverage what’s currently an unrealized opportunity? Simple: sponsored results. If I search for “Ford” and was looking for Ford Motors and not my friend who’s last name was “Ford”, a sponsored ad will show up at the top of the search which directs me to the “Ford Motor Company” fan page. I’ve produced a sample image below of what this could look like.

Currently Facebook has the curse of extremely engaging pages. The site is so engaging that most people don’t even realize that there are ads on the side of most pages. The one place where I’d suggest that this trend breaks is when people search for things. At this point there is an amazing opportunity to grab the user’s attention.

How many people are searching for Ford on a regular basis? I don’t know but enough people are writing about it that it shows up in the Facebook Lexicon, which tracks the frequency of words on walls. If people are writing about it, then it’s probably pretty good assumption that they are writing about it. While Facebook doesn’t currently monetize their search, this is a quick way for the company to boost their revenues while they keep searching for a breakthrough advertising solution.