Facebook's Graph Search May Be Key to More Ad Sales

Zuckerberg’s foray into social search isn’t only a user play. It’s an ad play

The company could charge more for ads if it can prove that it converts more searchers into buyersIllustration by Topos Graphics; Zuckerberg photograph by Bloomberg

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By Douglas MacMillan and Brian Womack

January 25, 2013 at 8:11 PM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

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This article is part of the January 28, 2013 issue of businessweek.

When Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg unveiled Graph Search on Jan. 15, he hailed his company’s latest innovation as a great leap forward for search. Facebook members who want to know their friends’ preferences before making decisions on restaurants, vacations, career choices, and maybe even life partners, can look for, say, “single friends in San Francisco who like sushi,” and be rewarded with meaningful results.

It’s a nice advance, but the real leap Facebook hopes to make is to overtake Google—and maybe LinkedIn and Match.com, too. Facebook has not yet detailed any advertising products that Graph Search will inevitably spawn down the road, but clearly Zuckerberg thinks he can offer his customers the grand prize of advertising: perfect microtargeting.