Facebook is improving its search functionality, resulting in the addition of some features (like
Graph Search beta) and the removal of Web search results. Those search results, which typically appeared when a user searched for something (or someone) not on Facebook, were powered by Microsoft Bing. Bing is the no. 2
search engine in the U.S., behind Google and ahead of Yahoo!
Facebook recently upgraded its phrase-based Graph Search beta, but dropped Bing Web search results.
Facebook removed Bing’s search functionality without any fanfare – in fact, no one is quite sure when the search tool was removed, and Facebook has been keeping quiet about the exact termination date. That seems to indicate that Web search isn’t a particularly critical part of Facebook, at least for now. If Facebook is contemplating an aggressive move into an area that Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo! already have locked down, it’s going to need to sell users on the idea.
Whether Facebook is signaling a move to provide its own Web search functionality or simply focusing its search on helping its users find other users is up for debate. Facebook and Microsoft have a long history of working together, including a major investment by Microsoft in Facebook in the social networking service’s early days. Whatever Bing’s disappearance from Facebook means, a break from Microsoft likely isn’t it.
Joshua Gulick
Josh cut his teeth (and hands) on his first PC upgrade in 2000 and was instantly hooked on all things tech. He took a degree in English and tech writing with him to
Computer Power User Magazine and spent years reviewing high-end workstations and gaming systems, processors, motherboards, memory and video cards. His enthusiasm for PC hardware also made him a natural fit for covering the burgeoning modding community, and he wrote
CPU’s “Mad Reader Mod” cover stories from the series’ inception until becoming the publication editor for
Smart Computing Magazine. A few years ago, he returned to his first love, reviewing smoking-hot PCs and components, for
HotHardware. When he’s not agonizing over benchmark scores, Josh is either running (very slowly) or spending time with family.
