Every once in a while; FaceBook comes up with something special for Distracted Students like us who always keep craving for something new. That’s the thing which has kept it breathing high in this era of social networking.  Well, the news is that FaceBook is now into Search Engines. After the commencement of Facebook Hacker Cup 2013, another big announcement was made on Tuesday by the man himself, Mark Zuckerberg. FaceBook has come up with its unique way to browse through the data connected with every person on the social networking site. It’s called Graph Search.

What is Graph Search?

First of all, Graph here, doesn’t mean in general. Here, the Graph is basically a map of all the things related to a person that is there on the FaceBook. Their Friends, the photos of their friends and those in which they are tagged in, all the pictures they have liked or shared, the events in which they have been invited and more. It is a database of all the threads activated by a user. And, Facebook Graph Search is the new tool with which a user can accomplish his interests to find photos, places, and people. Right now, it is under development and limited to various users. But, FaceBook will make it available for everyone as soon as possible.

How is it different from the previous Search Bar?

Facebook Graph Search will now be available on the top of every page on FaceBook as a larger search bar, the place where the regular search bar used to exist. Earlier, the Search Bar used to display search results only through the keywords we typed in. Now, you can insert phrases to get your result. As in, you can search for “Photos of 2012″, and the page would show the collection of the photos of you and your friend community that were uploaded to the FaceBook in 2012.

The previous Search Bar showed the link to various pages or people’s timeline. Whereas, the Facebook Graph Search will display the results as a modified page that would be filtered according to our queries. It creates new pages with all the custom content of the things a user and his friends have shared and no other bullshit! Also, the title of the page will be the query you type in the Graph Search. So, every title is a different page of your choice.

Graph Search and Web Search..Are they same?

No, the Facebook Graph Search is entirely a different tool. The search engines of the Web Search are designed to input the specific keywords mentioned by the user and use them to provide with a set of most relevant websites which is the same thing the previous Search bar used to do. But, with Facebook Graph Search, it’s like you are talking to your computer. You ask the questions in the form of phrases and it gives you the answers.

One more thing to note is that Facebook Graph Search is made for its own set of audience. As for every user, his Graph is different so will be the results. The privacy settings of Facebook Graph Search are what makes it so different as the maximum content on the FaceBook are private and are not shared publicly. It surely is a quicker way to find what you want from FaceBook. But, the Facebook Graph Search only shows you the stuff you could have found by browsing in some different way. The Privacy of every user has been strictly kept in mind while building this search tool. Only the information you have made Public will be enlisted in the search queries of another person.

How it Works?

The Facebook Graph Search is still on its course of development. When its Beta version came online this month, users first had to wait according to the wait list to get hold of the Search tool. FaceBook was taking users at a time and introducing this tool to them. Thereby, improvising the Facebook Graph Search based on the phrases searched by the users and their reaction.

The basic principle behind the working of the Facebook Graph Search is based on four important fields. These fields are People, Places, Photos, and Interests. Our main concerns are these four fields. It’s what every person is looking for on FB.

People – The first priority of every person who is looking for something on FaceBook are the people. It’s the reason we are glued to our monitors browsing FB. We are looking to make friends in this lot of unknowns. Earlier, when you visited a page, for example “Roger Federer“, there, you could see how many people liked the page and more importantly how many of your friends liked the page. Now, the Facebook Graph Search allows you to search “people who like Roger Federer in my Institute”, or “People who live nearby and like tennis”, and you shall have the list.  You can go to even more refined filtering, as in, “Engineers in Boston who like playing Golf”. Or you can simply search “People liking what I like”. It’s just like finding your sheep in the herd.

Places – The same thing goes for Places. Everything you wish to know will be available through Facebook Graph Search. Whether you want to dine at the finest Chinese restaurant or visit the finest corners of an unknown city. You can search what other people are visiting. “Restaurants visited by my friends in New York“, “hotels liked by celebrities”, “bars visited by my colleagues”. You can also keep track of your family and friends. “Monuments visited by my family”, “tourist places visited by my family”.

Photos – The second most important thing on FaceBook are the photos of people. It’s the thing what makes them feel connected though being miles apart so how could Facebook Graph Search let it go. You can feel all nostalgic and jump back to the collection of photos from your past by searching “Photos before 1987″, “Photos of Birthdays”, “Photos from School”. And you will have every one of those precious memories lay in front of you. You can keep count of the photos a special person has tagged you in. “Photos of me tagged by Jennifer”, “Photos of me and my family”. You can simply look at the recent pics if you have missed a week of browsing by searching “Photos of past week”. It’s really simple and helpful an all thanks to Facebook Graph Search.

Interests – FaceBook has also become the centre for other things like music, games, movies, and other areas of interest of the people. “Games played by my colleagues”, “Music listened by my Friends this year”, “Movies liked by friends who played Strategy games”. All sorts of list will be in front of you in moments with the help of this Facebook Graph Search tool.

The Current Feedback

In these few days, a very mixed review has been observed by the people around the world. Some are saying that Facebook Graph Search is the next big thing. While, some people are disagreeing with that. Well, one thing is for sure that it is making things easier. But, it has a big scope of improvement that needs to be done. It’s still under development. I think we should give the developers time and valuable suggestions.

- A lot more indexing has to be done in order to improve the search results of the Facebook Graph Search tool.

- FaceBook should launch Graph Search for other languages also. Right now, only English is available and that too to only a selected lot.

- Nowadays, the portable connectivity to social networking is majorly through mobiles. So, this Facebook Graph Search should be soon released for mobiles also.

The mixed report of Facebook Graph Search was also reflected in the shares. Prior to the big announcement on Tuesday, the shares of FaceBook went up to $32 as was expected by the investers. And, they again fell back 2.74% down to $30.10.

Also, the Bing’s Search Engine has been integrated with the Graph Search of FaceBook. So, if you don’t find the things of your interests in your Graphs, Bing’s global search results shall be displayed to help you find what you need.

To get the Facebook Graph Search, visit  www.facebook.com/graphsearch