Facebook to Build Search Engine?

Social media and search engine have become interconnected. Look what Google has done. After creating its social media platform called Google +, Google has recently announced the significant change to its search engine, calling it Search, Plus Your World. The idea behind “Search, Plus Your World” is that Google is trying to personalize your search results by including Google + data when you are signed into your Google account.  Search plus Your World surfaces content that has been shared with you on Google+, as well as public information from the social networking site that is related to your search, and integrates this data into typical Web search results. 

Google's "Search, Plus Your World

Meanwhile Google is trying to socialize its Search, Plus Your World, rumor has said that Facebook is also trying to build its own search engine. According to Businessweek, Facebook has formed more than 20 engineers that led by a former Google programmer. According to Mashable, the aim of this Facebook initiative is that to take the better advantage from lots of contents Facebook users create on and off the site every day. With people sharing status updates and supporting brand pages on the network, as well as using Facebook’s “Like” button to mark articles and videos from external sites, there is certainly a lot to take advantage of.

At the moment, Facebook has not confirmed the news yet. One of Facebook’s spokesperson has been asked and here is the response: “We don’t comment on rumors and speculation around products.” So, we have to wait until Facebook releases the official statement but if the rumor is true, it will increase the competition between the two Silicon Valley giants.

What do you think? Would an improved social search engine within Facebook affects the significant of Google search? Leave your thoughts here.

Cheers,

Ivan