Facebook enters the third phase of internet search

Facebook is using their social network information to optimize search results for users. This is exciting stuff! It is the third phase of internet search, much like we are building here at Lijit. What is this “third phase”?

I wrote a post detailing the 3 phases back in 2005 as a grad student. This graphic sums it up:

(Note the funny disclaimer at the end explaining why I couldn’t build it myself at that time. Now I’ve got a company and an incredible team helping me make that a reality. How cool is that?!)

Facebook doing true social network search. (as opposed to social democracy like Swicki or 2005-era Wink) This was explained, with impressive stats, by a post today on Facebook’s blog today.

Facebook search results are sorted by an approximation of social graph distance. People closer to you in the graph—your friends and people in your networks—are likely to be more relevant to you and thus are ranked higher. We also use this concept of “social proximity” to order results within applications like groups and events.

How does this compare to Lijit? Most importantly, we operate in the “wild and free” web. The data is not nearly so structured out here. Network relationships are overlap and can even contradict: MyBlogLog, LinkedIn, Blogrolls and more.

But on the other hand, we find data everywhere. The web is a big place, and the stuff you’re looking for probably isn’t always in Facebook!