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Comment by jonknee | Hacker News Reader

> one of them explicitly says how this product competes with Google. Something about how if two people search for Apple on Google, they'll get the same results, but if they search Apple on FB Graph Search, they'll get personalized results.

Except that's not true. Google personalizes results for users and also sometime integrates social aspects (through Google+).

If I search for pizza I see a map of pizza places close to me, their average reviews, links to find out more, photos, etc etc. I don't know if a Facebook friend once at a slice there, but I also don't care whatsoever and would rather not see it to be honest.

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>Google personalizes results for users and also sometime >integrates social aspects

Right, except this doesn't actually work unless all of your friends work at Google.

You don't have to use Google+ news stream if you want to get personalized search results, if that's what you're trying to imply (by friends working at Google). Search personalization is achievable by other means if necessary: past searches, searching while logging in with Google account, YouTube searches. Facebook is essentially trying to do the same, with much less product spectrum and more desperation as it gets more boring and uncool.

The social aspects I assume? Personalization absolutely works as it brings up a map of all the pizza places closest to me. Your search shows all the places closest to you.

Yeah that was a little bit of an exaggeration but I kind of see her point. Personalization in search engines is mostly at the cohort level, not at the individual. To use your example of a local search, the results are the same for the few thousand people who live in that zip code. More broadly, search engine results are not personalized as much as they are sensitive to location, gender, broad preferences, etc. Facebook results, on the other hand, really involve you as a person on a very fine level - your friends, etc.

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