Cool things you can do with Facebook’s new Graph Search
On Monday Facebook started rolling out it’s new “revolutionary” Graph Search. Implementing a better way to find information on all your friends on facebook. With the new search engine, users will be able to ask specific questions, such as “which of my friends live in New York?” Graph Search is also integrated with Microsoft’s Bing, meaning it will offer web search results if it can’t find anything useful in your graph. Facebook also claims the new search engine is faster, easier to see and use, and it picks relevant results better than the current one.
Facebook users who have the language set to U.S. English should start seeing the upgraded search box today.
First things first, check your Privacy settings
You need to check what exactly you are sharing to the public. Is your profile private, or setup so only friends can see your Timeline? You can use the new “view as” option that let’s you see your profile as a external/non-friend.
1. Connect with friends that like what you like
It is now easy to search for friends that has the same “Likes” as you. ex. you can search for “Show me friends that like wine” or show me friends that like “Dexter”. The possibilities goes on:
- My friends who like [Band/Artist Name]
- My friends who like [Actor/Director/Movie Title]
- My friends who like [Object (Wine, Beer, Barbecue, etc)]
- Friends of my friends who like
2. Discover more things to like that your friends already like
You can discover other things that your friends already like by searching for something that you have in common. Ex. You can search for “Movies my friends like that like the band U2”, or “Books my friends like that like cycling”. You can search for “Friends who have seen ‘Man of Steel’ or “Friends who are going to [Concert X]”.
3. Easy access to your old Facebook stuff
You can do a quick search for “my photos from 2008”, or “photos with me and my wife”, or any friend. Similarly you can search for friends photos with you in it.
4. Discover friends that are near you
You can also search for friends that work or stay near you, or know places or have “liked” places you are querying.
So far Graph search has received the thumbs up from most people, which is very rare considering the changes Facebook has made in the past. There’s way more things you can do with Facebook’s new Graph Search, feel free to let us know in the comments below.
One thing Facebook Graph is assuming though, is that people are actively updating their profiles with things such as where they work, stay, eat, hang out, what they like, etc. Which seems to be the case anyway, so we’re actually very excited about the new Graph Search.
