Facebook launches Graph Search – a social-network search tool

The tool was launched January this year for only limited number of public. On Monday Facebook turned on Graph Search for all US site version users, expanding the test program to tens of millions users.

The new tool allows people to easily find nearly anything indexed on Facebook, giving them another reason to share information and spend more time on Facebook. It’s also a good reason to double-check your privacy settings. Before the tool came up, Facebook users could only search for brands or friends by name and location. Graph Search lets users find specific information including their friends interests, restaurants, likes, work and education history and more, by using filters.

Graph Search tool could also be used in the future by advertisers and marketers so they could learn more about users and target them with accurate personalized ads. Recently, Facebook has been encouraging people to enter more information about themselves on their profiles, including work and education history, family information and so on. That is being used for the purpose of the new tool. Adding to that any likes and relationship statuses, addresses, phone numbers company is trying to enrich the data for the upcoming tool.

However, the information which is set private will not be shown at the search. Facebook plans to issue notifications to users warning them that its getting easier for people to find photos and other things youve shared with them along with a reminder that they can check “who can see my stuff” under their privacy settings. According to privacy and safety manager of Facebook “The goal is to avoid bad surprises”.

The new implementation has aimed to keep more users of the site online, delivering more accurate adds and upgrading service. Now it becomes easier to find a long-lost classmate with a common name, or to find common interests with friends of friends.

Facebook share price gained 1.4% yesterday still having to go a long way to offset a 7.17% year to date decrease.