Facebook Search Engine?

The question has been posed. And an intriguing question it is. If you're a person that likes to keep their world nice and neat by keeping Facebook in the "social media" box then listen up, because your world is going to get messy. The social media category is beginning to broaden. Is social media just sharing photos of your dog and telling people how you're disappointed with last night's run of American Idol? Or is social media so expansive that it includes location-based media (like Foursquare and Gowalla) or high resolution photo cataloging (like Flickr) or email (insert your email client here) or - *gasp! Search?

Facebook has entered all these realms, so why not search engine realm? As it turns out, social media sites are surpassing Google as the top referrer for online destinations. If people are getting to these destinations via Facebook would it not make sense for Facebook to plus-up this attribute? If the answer is yes, then Facebook adds the search business to it's repertoire – just like it added services that compete directly with many other entities like Twitter, Foursquare, Flickr, Outlook and so on.

Would it succeed in taking on Google? Investment companies like Goldman Sachs make it a lot easier for such a venture, with its latest infusion of $500 million to Facebook. It looks like a clash of the titans is beginning to brew.

More here at SearchBlog.

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