Facebook Questions: A Potential Threat to Google Search

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A day after Google was reported to be making a move towards social gaming to counter Facebook’s domination in the social networking market, the latter came up with an killer app to drive up the wall. The left-hand column on the Facebook page will soon have a new product - Questions. You might see a new Question feature appears in the left-hand column just below Events and Photos. Facebook users can now ask questions to and from the extended circle of friends. Facebook has launched the private beta version of the product. For better understanding the new development could be considered as a query based search that would hold answers to myriads of questions.

Facebook’s new move would not only take on Google, but also other Q&A forums on Yahoo Answers, LinkedIn and Quora. Clearly, the Q&A drives massive pageviews. This is an area Facebook might be looking to explore.
Users status publisher box or from the dedicated Questions page will be publicly available to everyone on the Internet via the Questions page.

With over 500 million users Facebook is expected to build a massive amount of data that is consistently reliable. What’s apprehensive, with a massive database of queries Facebook might serve as an alternative to Google search. That said, the success of such a venture will rely on Facebook’s algorithm.

On a breader perpespective Question feature is anticipated as Facebook’s first step towards the search market. As the cold war between Facebook and Google flares up, users will have better things to consume. Let’s see how it will benefit the users

Where to write the question?

At the first instance, drop the in the Question tab in the site’s left navigation area. You can also use the publisher that appears at the top of the page where the status updates are posted. In addition, you can type the question in the search box. Once you start typing your question in the search box the site will start displaying the list of similar questions that have been asked on the site. You can ask it directly from the search field.

How to become a beta tester?

In order to be a beta tester you need to submit three samples questions as provided below

• Main difference between Opera and Google Chrome
• How BP tried to clean up the oil spill
• Which is the best most popular online game

What about your privacy?

To be clear Facebook’s new product will not incorporate its extensive privacy settings. Every question you ask will be shared with everyone else on Facebook and all the questions you ask will carry your real name and those answering the questions will have their names posted.

What’s the authenticity of the answer?

Setting out the question to public you have rely on the polls to decide on the most appropriate answer. Facebook will conduct no individual analysis for the question but determine the answers based on the user’s interest. Response to the questions will be a mix of opinions from your friends and experts.

Can you elaborate your questions?

You can include photos and polls by tagging questions with the topic. In case you come across someone else’s question that you are interested to know just follow it.

Photo: Suppose you have a picture of a creature that you are unable to identify. Post the picture on Facebook Questions and seek an answer.

Exploring a topic: Facebook defines it as a roulette-type feature that allows users to browse Facebook’s eventual mountain of Q&A. The “Everything” feature under the “Questions about” drop-down menu allows users to browse the company’s catalog of questions.
Polling: Put up a query which browser is better IE or Firefox.

Tagging: Users can tag the questions based on the category or topic. This will make Q&A process more swift and make it easier to search for questions on Places, Events, Food, etc.

Can you ask anonymous questions?

With your name associated with your question the relevance of your question is always a factor to consider. There might be anonymous questions which is unexpected in a social platform or perhaps non-professional.

Facebook will be rolling out the product to a specific group of beta testers, but they will soon be offering the product to the users.