Joynt: Facebook introduces Graph Search

Jordan Joynt

Facebook introduced “Graph Search,” its new search feature, on Tuesday in a press conference.

Graph Search can be used to search for anything shared with you such as “people who live in my city” and “photos of me.” Each person views different search results based on what information is shared by friends.

Analysts speculate the new tool could possibly generate revenue for the company.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch raised its price target on stock for Facebook Inc. to $35 from $31 in response to the new search tool. Bank of America analyst Justin Post said graph search was “an example of Facebook’s ongoing innovation to increase engagement and potential to add revenues to the platform.”

Facebook has an ongoing partnership with Microsoft, allowing for Facebook results to show up in Bing search results. Conversely, when Graph Search is unable to find results, Bing results will be displayed instead.

Reuters reports that analysts don’t think Facebook’s search feature will be able to challenge Google in the short term.

“As of now, we do not see Graph Search as a threat to Google Web search. Looking forward, Facebook Graph searches could be competitive with certain categories of Google searches, such as Places and Maps,” BofA Merrill said.

Graph Search is currently in limited beta release, with Facebook making tweaks to the service prior to official release.