Facebooky Curated Search

September 7, 2010

I read “Facebook Now Displaying All Liked News Articles In Search Results.”

So here is the cost equation.

Indexing every wacky thing a spider can reach. Or why not index just the stuff that members click on or flag as Facebooky? Improve relevance and get out of the 1998 mentality toward search. In my opinion, the Googley approach is way expensive. The Facebooky approach is cheaper and probably better. The Facebook method may not emulate the wild and crazy CNN approach to news but Facebook humans are doing some heavy lifting. Facebook suck in what rings the Facebook members’ chimes. The result is Facebooky Curated Search or FCS. Add a consonant and a vowel and FCS becomes a serious stick in the eye for the Google.

Toss in the Facebook targeted ad and something interesting begins to take form.

Yep, I know the azurini see Facebook as a lower form of digital life. Yep, I know the SEO English majors can’t understand why anyone would search Facebook for news. It’s not search, right? Wrong. FCS may be a harbinger (sorry, big word, gentle reader) of a larger threat to finding information.

Why search?

There may be a Facebook app for that. Then what? A horror to awful to contemplate. Google’s traditional search becomes less vital to the Facebook set. Now of what does FCS remind me? Oh, I have an idea: Facebook crushes search. You thought something else?

Stephen E Arnold, September 7, 2010

Comments

Comments are closed.

  • Archives

  • Recent Posts

  • Meta