back to article Live blog: Facebook's 'screw you' to Google revealed at last

Facebook has called the world's press down to its headquarters in Menlo Park, and El Reg has braved the Death Race 2000 zone that is California's freeway system at commute time to be here. Speculation has been running wild about what the Behoodied One will announce. Theories have included a Facebook smartphone or tablet, an …

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  1. This post has been deleted by its author

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So its basically Google+ with added spyware to track your every movement on FB then.

    Meh.

    1. LarsG
      Meh

      So

      THE PRODUCT IS REALLY YOU!

      Yes YOU are the product.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Now count how many Facebook shares were sold at the peak!

      Ho Hum

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I get it I really do....

      Now I can search for people who have an interest in Anal Vibrators.....

      1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

        Red or blue ones?

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        anal vibrators

        Isn't that what backpage.com is for?

    4. JDX Gold badge
      Mushroom

      Boring

      Not the news, just the inevitable "it's just spyware" comments. FB in particular has the most amazing collection of data available which could be used for absolutely astonishing projects, but you supposed techy experts can't see past them sticking your face next to an advert, and classifying this as some ultra-heinous near-criminal offence.

      1. Mike Flugennock
        FAIL

        Re: Boring

        Not the news, just the inevitable "it's just spyware" comments. FB in particular has the most amazing collection of data available which could be used for absolutely astonishing projects...

        ...yeah, like surveilling dissidents, or just pestering the shit out of people with advertising.

        Shill much?

        1. Dave 126 Silver badge

          Re: Boring

          JDX wasn't shilling, he was being imaginative. If there wasn't the fear of data abuse, then much is possible. However, to foster the trust in the system that is needed for more edifying projects (see Arab Spring, car sharing, study of epidemiology etc) would require a different funding system and users owning the company. Its too late for that now.

          Zuckerberg has talked of a post-privacy society, which rightly puts people off. Unfortunately, it doesn't put enough people off for a peer-to-peer based, user-respecting alternative to arise.

          It is sad that a system that is becoming a de facto means of political engagement is funded on ambitions of flogging personal data to entities who try to nudge our decisions.

          (Facebook as it stands bugs me, and I rarely log on - party invites etc are forwarded to my inbox).

  3. NoneSuch Silver badge
    Devil

    Stock Price

    Was $30.64 at opening this morning in anticipation of the announcement. It is now falling back down since the press conference. Says it all really.

  4. Cubical Drone
    WTF?

    Sounds like just a big round of buzz word bingo

  5. Foxhill
    Thumb Down

    But beyond finding people, no-one uses the search function on Facebook anyway. There is no need. You can poke around their profiles to find the Bikini pics already.

  6. Zaphod.Beeblebrox
    Meh

    ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzz

    Wake me when it's over...

  7. Piloti
    WTF?

    So that's it.....

    A search tool.

    Really?

    NOw, if it were a 'phone or an OS, that would be news, but more f%#^ing search, Nahhhhh

    Oh, just remembered, I don't use Facebook so I don't even know why I'm reading this.......

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: So that's it.....

      They'll keep the phone announcement for the next time when they need to flog stock. Personally, I think anyone who holds FB stock after this spike deserves the risk..

  8. Bob Vistakin
    IT Angle

    Yawn

    Come to think of it, why is there no "yawn" icon?

    1. Petrea Mitchell
      Meh

      Re: Yawn

      Isn't that what this here "Meh" icon is for?

      1. Dave 126 Silver badge

        Re: Yawn

        I though the done thing thing when encountering a boring article was to move on to the next one without leaving a comment.

  9. Petrea Mitchell
    Stop

    I have doubts about its usefulness to me

    "Graph search is different from web search in that it doesn't link to the answer to a search, it just gives it, he claims."

    So, to improve on the dodgy information you can find with any Web search, they'll offer dodgy information with no way to figure out the source. Uh, great!

    (What really bothers me, actually, is realizing that most people won't mind not knowing the provenance of their answer.)

    "Results are ranked based on how important the person is to you."

    I dunno about that. I mean, Sir Isaac Newton is important to me, for instance, but I bet they won't find him in my social graph.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I have doubts about its usefulness to me

      I have doubts about whether they'll be able to stop people gaming it. How long before everything links ultimately to picture of a cat?

      1. Petrea Mitchell
        Go

        Re: I have doubts about its usefulness to me

        I don't know, but personally that *would* make it useful to me!

      2. JDX Gold badge

        Re: I have doubts about its usefulness to me

        Since presumably users tell FB how valuable data is TO THEM PERSONALLY, it depends on the data you give it.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I tried the demo...

    ... it told me which of my friends lived in the same town as me,, plus one single friend of a friend which I knew about...

    Totally unimpressive... but then again I'm not one of the sad bastards with 1000s of facebook "friends"

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I tried the demo...

      No you're one of the sad bastards with hardly any friends in real or virtual life?

  11. jake Silver badge

    Isn't there a law against ...

    ... facilitating stalkers? If there isn't, there should be. Aiding & abetting is the same as doing the crime itself 'round these here parts last time I checked ... And yes, I'm in the very same California that facebook is in.

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Re: Isn't there a law against ...

      >Isn't there a law against ...... facilitating stalkers?

      Taking that argument, phone directories would be outlawed, as would shrubbery in residential areas, and for that matter, roads.

      Jake, I find Facebook's history of not respecting privacy as distasteful as I'm sure you do, but your rhetoric needs a little refinement!

      1. jake Silver badge

        Re: Isn't there a law against ...

        "Taking that argument, phone directories would be outlawed, as would shrubbery in residential areas, and for that matter, roads."

        So you, Dave 126, personally, can completely maintain the entire content of a telephone directory in your mind, and cross-reference that data with local shrubbery & footpaths/roads?

        Think a little, would you ...

    2. auburnman

      Re: Isn't there a law against ...

      That's probably why Zuck's suddenly got a stiffy for privacy with the repeated emphasis on only searching stuff that is publicly viewable. Although how long that'll last before someone pulls some supposedly private stuff through hacking/social engineering/incompetent security is anyone's guess.

  12. Pat 11

    How do people find time for all the admin?

    Does anyone really keep their profile accurate and up to date, and manage all those privacy settings? It sounds like boring admin to me.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: How do people find time for all the admin?

      I don't think so. I syced my Facebook list with my phone and all the infomation in there was wrong....

    2. Fred Flintstone Gold badge

      Re: How do people find time for all the admin?

      You're right, it takes me ages to ensure that every bit of data they have about me is wrong.

      This is why tagging pisses me off - I wish I could make myself unavailable for tagging. To compensate, I spent time attaching my profile name (also not real) to about 50 different faces..

      1. JDX Gold badge

        Re: How do people find time for all the admin?

        Pretty sure stopping your tags showing up is trivial... people can tag you but you have to confirm it.

    3. Mike Flugennock

      Re: How do people find time for all the admin?

      Welll-llll...

      I have a FB account, but under a fake name, with a fake birthday, fake birthplace, fake city of residence, no workplace or education listed, and no list of favorite TV shows/movies/books/music. I post only copies of the cartoons I publish, and no fotos. I visit FB maybe once a week -- if that often -- and for about twenty minutes, tops -- if that long. My privacy settings are locked down tighter than a prima donna's corset, and I quickly got into the habit of checking them every time I visit FB.

      So, basically, I spend zero time keeping my profile "accurate" and "updated", and maybe fifteen minutes checking to see if my privacy settings haven't been jerked around.

  13. Blofeld's Cat
    FAIL

    Unlike...

    So we have an "announcement" of "work in progress" for a product still in "pre-beta" (alpha?), which won't be rolled out widely for at least a year, if at all.

    They also don't know how to index all the data yet, or turn it into a business.

    Sounds another sure-fire winner to me.

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge
      Holmes

      Re: Unlike...

      It is all a bit surreal, isn't it. Kind of hard to remember that this not in Zuck's dad's garage but in the offices of a company that went public for $ 100 bn. And, as I know that both your banks and mine sunk money into that IPO I'm not feeling particularly superior.

  14. mhoulden
    Meh

    Could we arrange for everything Mark Zuckerberg has posted to be as publicly available as he wants everyone else to be? Sauce for the goose, etc.

    1. Mike Flugennock

      re: "sauce for the goose"

      Could we arrange for everything Mark Zuckerberg has posted to be as publicly available as he wants everyone else to be? Sauce for the goose, etc...

      Y'know, I'd be surprised if Anonymous weren't already working on that.

  15. arrbee
    Big Brother

    Firstly...

    So the first thing to do with this is to get a list of all the photos in which you've been tagged and remove said tag ( ok, not first thing, more like thing to do once a week ).

    No, the first thing to do is to ensure all your (correct) personal info is either private to yourself or visible to 'real' friends only, i.e. not to friends of friends or to 'likers' or 'likees'.

    No, the first thing to do is to check if the search restrictions are real, e.g. contractual, or are just by convention, i.e. may vary depending on a user's financial or legal status. Could give a whole new meaning to "guilt by association".

    Incidentally, is there any word on whether the search queries themselves will be stored for future use ?

    1. Piloti
      Meh

      Re: Firstly...

      No, the first thing to do is to close down your FB account if you have one........

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Firstly...

      I imagine searches will show up in the activity log.

    3. JDX Gold badge

      Re: Firstly...

      If you're not going to use FB properly then I agree, why have an account? Just so you can complain about it?

      1. Dave 126 Silver badge

        Re: Firstly...

        >If you're not going to use FB properly then I agree, why have an account? Just so you can complain about it?

        There is some useful functionality in Facebook, but mission creep in search of profit seems inevitable. I would agree that some more positive criticism here would be better than just bashing FB, but the place organise a critical mass of people would be on Facebook itself, such as:

        http://www.europe-v-facebook.org/EN/Objectives/objectives.html

        It Facebook can be made to behave, it does clear the way for people to use it to help organise themselves- be it politically, socially, logistically or whatever.

  16. SB
    WTF?

    Another massive company finds itself with loads of cash and customers

    And not really sure how to expand.

    Google (search and email) and facebook (social network), both great at what they do - but not much else.

    This must be one of the biggest non-event in tech, you will in the future be able search facebook and find someone who posted a picture tagged with india ... how is that news ?

    select user_id from users where picture_tag = "india"

  17. FSM

    How bad can it be?

    "Over 3 per cent of Facebook's CPU time is spent on sorting out privacy, Zuckerberg says."

    I lol'd. Not sure if that's a lot or not.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: How bad can it be?

      "Over 3 per cent of Facebook's CPU time is spent on sorting out privacy, Zuckerberg says."

      "And that is 3% too much" He muttered forgetting his microphone was live

      1. Rob Moir

        Re: How bad can it be?

        I suppose we're supposed to be impressed but surely all this means is that their privacy policy is so byzantine that even their own systems struggle to support it, and it should therefore be simplified.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Fcuk the NWO

  19. Steve Aubrey

    Stocky is stalky?

    Who woulda thunk??

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm not sure I understand who would search for what (advertisers searching for round people to sell them ab workout machines?) and why anyone would want any of their stuff searchable by anyone other than their friends.

    Well done to facebook for creating a lot of hot air about a non-product.

  21. Camilla Smythe
    Boffin

    He's a Facking Loon!!1!!

    Have you seen what Kent Ertugrul has been up to in Turkey recently?

    Facking Loons!!!!!!

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Facepalm

    Search for which movies or music your friends liked!

    ...because you're too much of a fucking moron to actually form your own opinions.

    1. JDX Gold badge

      Re: Search for which movies or music your friends liked!

      The moron is the person who:

      a)calls people morons for not making their own opinions

      b)tries to force his own opinion on others

      c)thinks his opinions are not the result of all the opinions he was exposed to

      No man is an island as the saying goes

      1. Mike Flugennock

        Re: Search for which morons or morons your morons liked!

        The moron is the person who:

        a)calls people morons for not making their own opinions...

        Y'know, I was just now thinking how sad this whole exchange is. Do you realize that without the word "moron", the entire Internet would probably grind to a halt?

        1. Dave 126 Silver badge

          Re: Search for which morons or morons your morons liked!

          >Search for which movies or music your friends liked!...because you're too much of a fucking moron to actually form your own opinions.

          Er, the whole point of requesting movie reviews is to avoid watching bad movies- I'd rather not waste two hours watching The Texan Chainsaw Massacre remake when ALL signs are that it is complete shit. The Evil Dead remake, with no CGI and blessing from Bruce Campbell... maybe, will wait for a review. Groovy. I know tastes vary amongst my group of friends, just as it does amongst reviewers and publications.

          1. Spleen

            Re: Search for which morons or morons your morons liked!

            "I'd rather not waste two hours watching The Texan Chainsaw Massacre remake when ALL signs are that it is complete shit."

            It's a remake of The Texan Chainsaw Massacre, what did you expect?

            In fact, never mind the remake, the name of the film is "Texas Chainsaw Massacre". Were you expecting Citizen Kane?

    2. Fuzz

      Re: Search for which movies or music your friends liked!

      Forming your own opinions is not the issue. The problem is some of my friends have terrible taste in films and music, they aren't my friends for their film or music tastes. Therefore if I'm wondering what films or music my friends like I'll generally ask them when I speak to them, which I do because they're my friends, rather than waiting for them to volunteer this information to a social media site and then leeching the information from there.

      Similarly if I need a plumber I'll know if any of my friends have used one recently and ask them about that.

    3. ForthIsNotDead
      WTF?

      Re: Search for which movies or music your friends liked!

      ...because you're too much of a retard to, you know, *ask them* which movies or music they liked!

  23. mickey mouse the fith
    Meh

    Meh

    So I can search for everyone in my area who`s on holiday at the moment.....then rob their house*?

    Probably makes paedos lives easier as well, what with the age search thing.

    Also, I bet advertisers/spammers are feaverishly pissing about with tags as we speak.

    Never understood why people prostitute their boring lives and personal details on facebook without a thought to why it doesnt cost them anything. Hint: those servers are paid for with these peoples stupidity.

    1. JDX Gold badge

      Re: Meh

      Why do you want to rob your friends houses?

      1. mickey mouse the fith

        Re: Meh

        "Why do you want to rob your friends houses?"

        Look down that list of 100`s of `friends`, how many are actual friends and how many are just random people you added for no obvious reason other than to boast how many facebook friends you have?

        Thats why.

        I dont mean I would personally rob people , but il wager quite a few ner-do-wells eyes lit up at the prospect.

        There are so many idiots that just accept random friend requests that this is like a goldmine for the dishonest.

        1. JDX Gold badge

          Re: Meh

          How many are actual friends... all of them. Or at least people I know.

          1. Fred Flintstone Gold badge

            Re: Meh

            Nah, Facebook friends are only called "friends" because "acquaintances" was too hard to write.

  24. Rob
    Meh

    Sounds like...

    ... a desperate move. As someone else mentioned earlier, they have all this data and this is the best they can come up with. Sod the search, focus on making an intuitive UI that fits with a multitude of devices, truly go for a product that is device agnostic get it into everything and refine everything you currently have, in turn you should be able to monetise those channels better than you already have. Unlike at the moment where FB is struggling to really monetise on the mobile/smartphone access trend that appears to have surprised it.

  25. dssf

    First Questions can be DANGEROUS

    Good thing I had not had any qualifications for being there. I would have asked, "hey, behoodied one... Have you ever heard of Visual Analytics?

    http://www.visualanalytics.com/

    http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&gl=US&q=visual+analytics&sa=X&oi=image_result_group

    http://www.sas.com/technologies/bi/visual-analytics.html

    http://www.sas.com/technologies/bi/visual-analytics.html#section=4

    I would have pointed out that the first time *I* saw it was around 1999, and that what fb are offering is NOT stellarly new.

    Second, I would have pointed out that if users really have exportable data, they could dump it out and go for the next Open Source social or mining app that acts like Visual Analytics.

    Third, I would have pointed out that any slick SQL database with a user-friendly GUI and abiity to process billions of records could do that. Hell, for that matter, Lotus Approach, as a front end, could to most of it:

    1. Find only my friends, or find all "not = my friends"

    2. Create a "stored find" of just my friends, or of those

    3. Using stored find, further constrain found set to find all records containing value "x" or "x, y, z"

    As long as the records contain content correct for the columns' name, not much data sanitization need be done.

    And, any government agency needing such features (in case fb expect to wow world governments) can roll their own tools while awaiting the results of a valid warrant for any and all persons related to or having contacted person or persons "x", "y", or "z", or all persons having a temporal or proximity association in this geographic area during these time points.

    What fb is talking about is NOT going to boost their shares values. Maybe he is trying to build a hood-wearing cult? If so, he should get into the sweater-making business, one that embeds Wi-Fi and fb into the cloth...

  26. Mike Flugennock
    Alert

    "Graph Search is one of the coolest things we've ever done," he boasts...

    Oh, Christ, now we're really in for it.

  27. P_0

    I thought Facebook had at least built a secret phone OS or something. Facebook are becoming masters in the art of disappointing. What did they reveal at their last awesome announcement? Wasn't it facebook email or something?

    Anyway, I think they are reaching the limits with what can be done with all these petabytes of user information. There are only so many ways we can find out which of our friends listens to Coldplay.

    Maybe they should concentrate on the gaming aspect of Facebook. I don't play Zynga-like games, but I know they are popular and addictive. People are going to spend more time on the site if they are playing games, as well as buying in-game items.

    1. JDX Gold badge

      I think we're only scratching the surface what their data could be used for, the problem is it's so much data it's hard to process.

      I bet you could in theory develop intelligence agents which identify criminal/terrorist groups based on the interactions and interconnections between people for instance.

  28. bag o' spanners
    Meh

    This only makes commercial sense if there's a premium service for brands and business pages. How legal is the process of skewing results for the benefit of the paying commercial customers? How much astroturfing will I need to do to artificially enhance my ranking if I'm competing with Tard the grumpy cat. Can I get away with embedding a subliminal metatag in my outsourced memes of the week? Where do those godawful manipulative "like and share to win" links fit into the grand scheme of things?

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    That's it?

    Seriously? If someone adding search to their site is enough to get Wall St collectively staining its undies, we're screwed. My 1972 "World of the future" annual suggested something a bit racier than a better rake for your muckpile.

  30. Matthew Smith

    The only search that anyone performs

    Search : Images

    Depth : 10 degrees of friends

    Wearing : Bikini

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    ...Really? This is news?

    So Facebook has invented the SQL query? 'cos given the tabular nature of the data they store (rather than the more amorphous stuff Google et al have to work with) it looks like it should be really quite trivial to pull this data out, with the server-side security restricting access to anything you're not allowed to see.

    1. JDX Gold badge

      Re: ...Really? This is news?

      I guess you're an expert performing thousands of simultaneous queries on a multi-PB database then? It's called graph-search for a reason, the connectedness of a graph is in direct relationship to how hard it is to analyse.

  32. chiller

    Boring

    Zuck, call the world press next time you have a shit ... that might be mildly more interesting if a little aromatic/toxic.

  33. Irongut

    map out the world's Social Graph

    Well the morons on FB search graph anyway.

  34. Jonathan Richards 1
    Facepalm

    Web of trust

    It's all very well to say that (were I actually to HAVE a Facebook account), I could search for, oh, I dunno, say a new tablet computer and weight the results by the ones that FB friends and FBFs of FBFs etc. "Like". I can see how that would be a fun and geeky sort of thing to work out, if you've got terabytes of linked Likes.

    However, it's much more likely that I'm going to think of an Actual Friend who kno more than 0 about tablets, and I'm going to give him or her a call and say "What do you think of the new Applung Nexoid 19.3, eh?".

    I don't necessarily trust the judgement of every one of my friends, and certainly not equally across all of them with respect to any particular issue. That social graph is going to need its edges weighting carefully if the search results are going to be anything but dross.

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