People might think Facebook gave up on introducing the Graph Search altogether, judging by the mind-blowing speed this social network rolls out its updates at. Fortunately, as of yesterday, U.S. English users get to have a taste of this feature.
Back in January, I wrote about the newly announced feature that it’s not something impressive and that Facebook should have implemented it from the very beginning. Since then, however, Graph Search hasn’t really made the news. Yesterday, as announced on the Facebook Newsroom, it was revealed that tens of millions of people have improved Graph Search simply by using it and providing feedback. I am not aware of the algorithm used by Facebook for accepting beta-testers, but it looks like that Waiting List button wasn’t there for nothing, after all.
One of the things people complained about when Graph Search was first announced was the speed of Facebook’s internal search engine. Apparently, the social network became aware of that and now claims to have made Graph Search faster. The increased speed can be perceived when displaying both suggested searches and search results.
In the beginning, Graph Search could understand only certain questions, so formulating them in different ways could lead to a lack of search results. That is also one of the aspects Facebook has worked on. Query understanding has thus been improved, and questions can now be asked in more ways.
Another thing that has been tweaked is the order of the results. Supposedly, Graph Search was not able to tell which results are the most important, but things have changed in the meantime, and now the most relevant ones are displayed first.
Last, but not least, the interface has also been changed. The search bar, which you can see above, is now easier to see and use. I don’t know how anyone could’ve have missed it, supposing that they had access to the Graph Search engine, but if Facebook claims that, I’m not going to disagree with them.
Anyone using Facebook in U.S. English should get Graph Search in the next few weeks. The following message will let them know what other people can see. In other words, Facebook users can adjust their privacy settings so that their likes show up or not among the search results. The social network is looking to improve Graph Search furthermore, so a global launch might follow in the not-so-distant future.
If you liked this post, please check the initial announcement of the Graph Search and Facebook Timeline.
