A Facebook team is currently working to develop a new search engine component for the popular social networking website. While this feature undeniably crosses in to Google turf (see Albina Gibadullina’s “Will Google no longer be the most renowned search engine?“), internet-users will look to Facebook for a unique, hip, and inventive spin. In the business vernacular, these distinguishing qualities are called points of difference. How will Facebook’s search engine satisfy our immediate needs while enhancing our social networking experience? What will Facebook offer us that Google can’t?
Consider this: Do we pour as much personal and social information in to Google as we do so willingly, and frequently, on Facebook? The popular social networking site stockpiles massive amounts of unique information on its users. As Paul Cubbon mentioned in his video lecture on value propositioning, socio-demographics (age, gender, location) as well as psychographics (values, attitudes, lifestyles) can provide valuable insights in to the consumers’ minds. If Facebook makes optimal use of its data, it can reinvent the search engine such that it establishes a point of difference which attracts an even larger pool of consumers.
Photo: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/facebook_vs_google.jpg
Paul Cubbon: http://www.sauder.ubc.ca/Faculty/People/Faculty_Members/Cubbon_Paul