worst photoshop job ever? haha
It's no secret that Google copies just about every web service that is successful and can be used to advertise. Google maps, Google phone, Google buzz, Google mail, Google... everything. All basically copied ideas that have been improved.
Hey... it's part of the business, I guess.
Google's scopes are now on Facebook. How can they make a social media empire that is like that of Facebook?
Now it seems that Google might get a taste of their own medicine. Just recently Facebook filed for patents regarding search results based that is largely based on the interests and clicks of a user’s friends and friends-of-friends. Imagine using Facebook as the next search engine...
No more would the top results be determined by what some linking algorithm says... but instead based on your friends and family like and interests.
Seems like a really interesting concept to me.
From a Mashable article:
Specifically, the patent is for “ranking search results based on the frequency of clicks on the search results by members of a social network who are within a predetermined degree of separation.”
The patent continues, “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.”
From an InsideFacebook article:
It says a connection can be between “registered users who are related within two or more degrees of separation to the registered user within the online social network”. This leaves the degrees of separation up to Facebook, meaning results could be based on clicks by your friends, friends of friends, or every registered Facebook user. Searching for humorous content with results ranked by what your friends clicked could produce a more valuable experience than rankings based on clicks from across the web.
Either way... it's certainly going to be interesting how they integrate that and more importantly... how we as Facebook marketers can use it to our advantage.
UPDATE: According to THIS mashable article, it seems that this patent is being put into action. Direct from Facebook:
“We launched the ability to see articles shared by your direct friends in the search typeahead. For instance, if your friend is on a news site and clicks “Like” under one of the articles (which will then go into News Feed), when you go to search for that article on Facebook, it will surface in the dropdown.”
I think this is a huge opportunity that could eventually lead to a great search engine. Look out Google!
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