Facebook is capable of becoming the richest company on Earth. At
least I know just how to make that happen. I am sure that they will
also figure it out sooner or later. In the meantime an effective
search engine using the system's strengths is a pretty good place to
begin. The tool can in time become a driver to participation.
Remember the time that the computer was dying for lack of a killer
app? This one has dragged everyone into the computer age. Remaining
holdouts are all easy converts today as a machine and a Facebook
account and they are inevitably hooked. So get Grandma a computer
and her own Facebook account.
Social media is back boned by Facebook. It is reconnecting the
unconnected and single handedly resetting the mental health
landscape. It allows concerned families to track other members when
necessary. We are also discovering that the disturbed make signals
that allows intervention to occur. It is becoming harder to slip
between the cracks of our social world and disappear into ourselves.
This is a great good that we can add to our understanding of the
computer revolution.
We are not just sharing knowledge, but we are now sharing intent.
Facebook can tap that.
STEVE LADURANTAYE
Wednesday, Jan. 16
2013
I’m staring at my computer screen, completely paralyzed by which words to type into the search field.
It’s been years
since such a simple task has rendered me useless. The last time I
couldn’t think of anything to type was back when Napster was
illegal, and my brain would shut down every time I tried to think of
another low-quality song to add to my collection of zillions.
This is different
though. I’m not stealing music this time (Metallica put an end to
that with a tersely worded e-mail), I’m about to use Facebook’s
new search function to do a deep dive into the personal lives of my
friends.
The search function
was announced yesterday, and most of its initial invitations will go
out to American users. But Canadians are also eligible to join the
beta testing, provided their language preference is set to “American
English.” I’ve managed to jump the queue, and I’m feeling the
pressure to do some quality searching.
Every small piece of
information my friends have shared with the social network site over
the years is nothing more than another data point to be retrieved and
analyzed. I can learn all kinds of things, maybe.
But first, I need a
question.
Part of the problem is
that there is nothing like Facebook’s Graph Search. When you ask
Google a question, it searches the entirety of the Internet and comes
back with the mathematically perfect answer to your query. This is
entirely different – I’m not asking the world for an answer with
Facebook search, I’m asking my jerk friends.
I’ve locked in on
books, since I’ve read everything on my e-reader and may get a few
minutes later to read something new. I could just Google “top
selling books” or something, but instead I ask Facebook which books
my friends have liked. This is a literal query – it tells me
exactly who has clicked the “like” button for which books.
Already, I’m
learning things. I had no idea so many friends were fans ofEat It: A
Literary Cookbook of Food, Sex and Feminism . I’m also a
little annoyed by how many of them clicked “like” to let the
world to know how much they appreciated The Catcher in the Rye.
These searches are the
heart of the service. Any computer algorithm can tell you which
movies are playing down the street and direct you to a website where
angry basement dwellers bash out blog entries about why each movie
sucked.
But finding out which
movies your relatively close friends have spent money on lately?
That’s useful information – especially if you are actually
friends with the people on your Facebook list and there’s an
outside chance you speak to them in real life.
That’s the social
way to use the search function. The anti-social way is also pretty
time consuming. Everything any of your friends has ever liked is
searchable, and by using the options provided you can start to see
patterns.
Ever wondered how many
of your friends live in Winnipeg? How about how many of them are
female and in an open relationship? (It turns out the answer is zero,
at least in my case).
Which brings up a key
point – the search is only as good as the information users share,
and those worried about privacy can make themselves unsearchable. At
one point Facebook recommends I search my best friend’s history to
determine his political affiliation. When I agree, it tells me he
doesn’t have one.
So in theory, nobody
should be able to find something about you that you hadn’t already
shared.
And then it hits me –
I’ve figured out what to search. I’m going to spend the next few
hours Facebooking myself. Who knows what I might learn when I start
studying my patterns?
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