As discussed previously, Facebook and Google are doing battle with each other over search. Facebook is now on par with Google for monthly visits (as shown in our friendly little graphic here) and has made plenty of headlines as it often now beats Google in terms of driving traffic to sites. Just a few days ago Facebook threw a punch at Google by unveiling a new search functionality that begins to deliver on the promise of social search as we outlined last year:

Today someone might use Google to search for a solution your company provides and see your website content well positioned within the results. They’ll click on the link and land on a landing page to learn more about how your company addresses their particular problem. But next year they might just search Facebook instead, and they’ll see that a friend of a friend had a similar need for that solution and went with Company X. This will be more valuable because they can connect directly with this friend via their friend’s connection and discover more about their personal experience with the company. They might also see a post on Company X’s Facebook page within the results discussing this particular solution, further solidifying Company X as a solutions provider candidate.

Facebook’s new search functionality begins to deliver on this scenario by leveraging their like button that they launched in April (like the one on the bottom of this post). The advent of the like button was seen as a sign that Facebook was about to open the floodgates in their war with Google. This new search functionality is the floodgates opening. Here’s how this functionality works, as described by Facebook (via Allfacebook):

“We launched the ability to see articles shared by your direct friends in the search typeahead. For instance, if your friend is on a news site and clicks ‘Like’ under one of the articles (which will then go into News Feed), when you go to search for that article on Facebook, it will [appear] in the dropdown.” Most significant is that the content displayed “is only available for articles shared by your direct friends (not globally to all users on Facebook).” Additionally, “[results are] not [shown] to you based solely on number of ‘Likes’ for the article.”

Google, not to be outdone, held a press event today about their latest effort in the search game, Google Instant. While this new functionality is important (and is actually similar to Facebook’s new search since it also instantly returns results as you type), it’s just an interface update. This announcement today certainly wasn’t an effective block of Facebook’s social search punch [nor was it necessarily meant to be]. While Google has moved forward in integrating social into search, today’s event amounts to them taking Facebook’s punch.

Google still faces a serious challenge in staving off Facebook’s social salvo: Facebook is a closed ecosystem, impenetrable to Google (except as Facebook allows), they are effectively their own “web” (also see The Great Wall of Facebook). The closed ecosystem of Facebook, combined with their massive success, is one of the reasons why Wired recently (and controversially) declared “The Web is Dead.” Clearly Facebook has changed the way the world uses the Internet and now they are rolling out a new way for us to search.

As Facebook rolls out this new search solution they will drive even more traffic to sites. Brand’s can ride this wave by embracing social search, participating in the open graph and enabling themselves to be visible in Facebook’s new social search engine. Need help doing that? Give us a call- we’d love to review your social efforts to date and a discuss how you can ride this emerging social-search wave.