Graph Search is Facebook’s answer to Google and already people, pages, and location can be hashtagged, but according to TechCrunch, “Facebook May Launch Hashtags To Open Graph Searches Of Related Posts, But There Are Privacy Concerns.” Facebook is currently working on this project, but it is more complicated than one would think. It requires Facebook to add posts to items that are already searchable in Graph Search. The social network wants posts to be searchable and hashtags makes it a whole lot easier. Users would no longer have to know the exact terms to find an item.
Facebook could also capitalize on Graph Search with the hashtags, but attaching them to brand names for marketing campaigns. Yet more sponsored results.
Then privacy comes in:
There’s a big issue with hashtags on Facebook, though. Unlike Twitter where most posts are public, on Facebook most have some level of privacy. Clicking a hashtag would therefore only be able to show you public posts and those set to be visible to you that mention the tag. One option would be showing the content of private posts but not their authors, though this would likely be met with backlash.
It would be a way to rid Facebook users even more of their privacy rights. Does anyone else see Facebook doing whatever they want without concern for the users? Search should comply to a users’ needs. LucidWorks can tweak its open source search applications for the Cloud, Big Data, and enterprise to suit the needs of individual clients.
Whitney Grace, April 2, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search