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MENLO PARK, Calif. (AP) - Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has unveiled a new search feature on the world's biggest online social network.
Called "graph search," the new service lets users search their social connections for information about people, interests, photos and places. Until now, Facebook users were unable to search for friends who live in a certain town or like a particular movie. With the new feature, people can search for friends who, say, live in Boston who also like "Zero Dark Thirty".
Zuckerberg says the search feature is "privacy aware." That means users can only search for content that has been shared with them.
The company was not expected be showing off a new office building _unless it decided to make its invitation very literal.
It's also unlikely to be unveiling a much-rumored "Facebook phone" _unless CEO Mark Zuckerberg has changed his mind recently. Last fall, as he'd done on numerous occasions, he publicly shot down speculation that Facebook was building its own smartphone.
"It is so clearly the wrong strategy for us," Zuckerberg said at a September technology conference in his first public interview after Facebook's May initial public offering. "It doesn't move the needle for us."
As far as search goes, users would likely welcome a better way to sift through Facebook for people, businesses, events and everything else available on the vast online network.
The company, whose much-ballyhooed initial public offering turned out to be a disappointment, may also talk about new advertising features. Facebook has been especially focused on building up is mobile advertising business, since most of its users access Facebook through smartphones and tablets.
Research firm eMarketer estimates that Facebook, the No. 2 company in the U.S. mobile advertising market, had an 8.8 percent share last year _up from zero in 2011. That compared with No. 1 Google's 56.6 percent. This year, Facebook is expected to grow its share to 12.2 percent, while remaining far behind Google.
Facebook, which has been calling itself a "mobile-first" company, has been growing thanks to increased use of its mobile apps, improving ad quality and its emerging advertising network, called Facebook Exchange, said Baird analyst Colin Sebastian in a recent note to investors.
"Our field checks suggest that the recently launched Facebook Exchange is helping advertisers target consumers more effectively," he said.
Sebastian thinks that over time, Facebook will make more money from mobile ads, helped by its increasing experience in the space, as well as its "ever-increasing user profile data."
(Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
