[rehack]

>Changes to Facebook are like fluctuations in gas prices though. People grumble and complain, then just go ahead and don't change their habit.

IMO, its like this. We spend a lot of time here on HN. Just like a whole lot more people do on Facebook. But we come to HN for a specific purpose to engage in these kind of discussions. Just like it will be difficult for PG to convert this into something else which makes more money (PG gave the example of a market place), I think it will be no simpler for Mark Zuckerberg.

PS: This was my take on FB, before the IPO http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3949048

[kamaal]

FB has insane guaranteed users. Imagine a 'search the internet' or 'search videos' bar somewhere in the Facebook homepage.

Even Google knows that's dangerous.

[rehack]

One's local circle of friends on FB makes for perhaps 1%, in terms of its quality & value, of the overall number of signals(200?), that Google uses for its search.

Just like we come to HN for discussions, which our social circle on FB is not able to satisfy. Similarly, people will continue to go to the best search engine for searching for information.

Even today, if you want to get an overall sense of what people are thinking in general, you go to twitter search. Facebook you mostly search for persons, and what they are doing. It will be very difficult to change that.

PS: I realize my first para is speculative. And the rest is opinion.

[kamaal]

>>Similarly, people will continue to go to the best search engine for searching for information.

There is no reason why Facebook can't become that. If Apple can make phones and Google can make phone OS. If Microsoft can make gaming consoles.

There is nothing stopping FB from doing it.

[rehack]

Yes, that's possible. But then it will be doing something new and different, isn't it? And it has to be more based on the spending power it has. And not related to its social network power.

Google put G+ on its home page, with not much success. Similarly, why should FB get a leverage out of just putting search on its home page. Unless the search is really better than Google's. What advantage FB has over say blekko in competing in search?

[hackinthebochs]

They don't need to do anything new or different. The barrier to a user to use a new search is miniscule. It's even less if you're already spending 90% of your online time on that site to begin with. G+ didn't work out because there is a huge barrier to users to become active on it. The two are vastly different.