Hasta La Gadget!

Facebook this morning announced “Graph Search,” a way to search all of Facebook’s content for queries tailored to your profile. CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained the search by saying, “Graph Search is meant to answer very specific questions like ‘Who are my friends in San Francisco?” In a video released by Facebook just after the announcement, project lead Lars Rasmussen (formerly of Google Maps / Waves fame) related a story about needing a dentist in a town he’d just moved to, and being able to search through which dentists his friends used for a tailored result. Worry not, privacy protectors: we’re told Graph Search is “privacy aware;” Facebook’s even dedicated 10 percent of its computing power just to the goal of ensuring privacy. And no, none of your privacy settings will automatically change as a result of signing up or using Graph Search.

It’s being touted as a return to Facebook’s roots, when the company’s main goal was forging connections between people (rather than, say, a gaming portal, or a means for companies to advertise). Graph Search is essentially a relaunch of Facebook’s internal search engine, allowing its already existing users to forge new relationships with folks they may not otherwise meet, and to find content that’s hyper-specific. The beta — albeit in a limited, English-only capacity — kicks off today. During that period only a “subset of content” is available through search, with four primary areas of focus: people, photos, places, and interests. Facebooks says Graph Search will expand, “over the coming months,” with additions like searchable wall posts and song listens (only if your privacy settings allow those things to be searchable, that is).

You can head right here to get whitelisted for the beta, which is apparently rolling out “very slowly.” Or you could head past the break right now for the full PR from Facebook and a walkthrough video, as well as a slew of updates from our liveblog.

Continue reading Facebook launching ‘Graph Search’ personalized social search engine, beta starts today (video)

Filed under: Internet, Software, Facebook

Comments

Twitter’s pretty often enhancing its microblogging platform by adding plenty of new features, and the latest changes could very well be among the most useful ones. Via its Engineering Blog, Twitter has gone into detail about how it has improved search within its social network, noting that a “real-time computation” system has been built to help “identify search queries as soon as they’re trending, send these queries to real humans to be judged, and then incorporate the human annotations into our back-end models.” What this means, essentially, is you’ll now be able to learn more about what the service’s millions (and millions) of users are talking about, helping you discover what the most popular topics are all about — you know, something like #notimpressed or #tigerblood. The company’s blog post is rather thorough on how the search improvements work, so be sure to hit the source link below if you’d like to learn a little more about the recent tweaks.

Filed under: Internet

Comments

Source: Twitter

Whether you’re upfront about it or firmly in the closet, the search data doesn’t lie: we all have a pop culture crush. Which is why Microsoft’s expanding Bing’s snapshot pane, one of three columns within its revamped layout, to display expanded data on celebrities and landmarks. (What? You thought all of those Kim Kardashian keyword searches went unnoticed?) Now, users that enter queries related to either of those two categories will be able to preview a host of relevant info (e.g., filmography, discography, movie trailers and track previews) from that second results column, all culled from a wider reach of sources. It’s the first of many planned enhancements for Microsoft’s search platform, so stay tuned for further changes in the “coming weeks.”

Filed under: Internet, Microsoft

Comments

Source: Bing

Now that we’ve officially entered December, 2012 is beginning to wind down. Since we’ll soon be saying hello to 2013, it’s time once again for those interesting year-end list that give us all sorts of statistics from the last 12 months. Today one of those lists is coming from Yahoo, breaking down its 10 most popular search terms for the year.

Only one gadget graces that top 10 list: the iPhone 5. Apple’s latest iPhone managed to secure the number two spot on the list, ranking behind the 2012 US election but above the likes of Kim Kardashian, who somehow was number three on the list. The iPhone 5 also ranked above Kate Upton, Kate Middleton, the Olympics, and Lindsay Lohan, so take that as you will.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the iPhone 5 took the top spot in Yahoo’s list of top 5 most searched gadgets according to The Los Angeles Times. The third-generation iPad came in second, while the iPad mini managed to slide into a third place ranking. It wasn’t just Apple products in the top five though, as the Samsung Galaxy S III and Amazon Kindle Fire rounded out the group.

Not bad a phone that’s only been available since September. Of course, with all of the rumors that were making the rounds before Apple finally unveiled the phone, it isn’t all that surprising to see it rank so high on Yahoo’s year-end list. Be sure to have a look at our story timeline below for more on the iPhone 5!

Yahoo’s year-end search report sees iPhone 5 near top is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Have there ever been questions in the back of your mind, but they weren’t really a top priority to sit down and search for the answer? Google is wanting to give you answers and information for things that you’ve always wondered about, but never actually searched for, with a new kind of mobile search tool that Google is working on.

This new concept that Google is concocting aims to understand the hidden needs of users by sampling a test audience as they go about their everyday lives. For instance, one test subject was contacted several times per day over the course of several days, and told Google about the things they wanted to know, such as how long the line is at the grocery store, or questions that randomly arose while they were too busy doing something else.

We’re not sure what exactly Google has up its sleeve, but lead user experience designer for Google Search Jon Wiley said that “the perfect search engine will provide you with exactly what you need to know at exactly the right moment, potentially without you having to ask for it.” So, it seems Google is simply just looking to improve it’s search engine, but with telepathic-like features.

There’s already services like Google Now that give you information whenever you need it at a moments notice, and it seems that this is exactly the direction that Google is heading. Wiley mentioned that Google isn’t ready to release information on its study just yet, but other similar studies will likely follow in the future, and we should be seeing more and more activity on this front as time goes on.

[via Technology Review]

Google plans to give you search results for things you never search for is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.