Big news at Facebook yesterday, huh?
I’m not going to dissect Graph Search for you. There are a gazillion blog posts already written about it. The best I’ve seen (so far) is one from Christopher Penn titled, “Five Tips for Facebook Graph Search Optimization.”
I suggest checking it out because he makes some interesting points about how Facebook now competes with Google (although Google is about what and Facebook now is about who) and how search engine optimization will change.
Lots and lots of speculation about it and lots of information about it. Just do a search for “graph search” and you’ll find more than you need.
We’ll cover it here after we’ve had a chance to use it and see what works and what doesn’t work.
But Facebook isn’t the only technology launching something new. Delicious and Branch both announced big changes.
Delicious Changes
Delicious has had a rough year, but it looks like it’s back. I began using it when it was de.lic.ious, but stopped last year when it switched ownership and I lost all of the bookmarks I had organized neatly to share, particularly when I speak.
It was frustrating and I was disappointed, but it might be worth taking another look.
They launched an iPhone app last month and they have a fancy new design. And they have a few new features, according to their blog:
- An omnibox search bar to conveniently search across keywords, tags, usernames, your network and even tag bundles!
- Enhanced profile pages with names and personal bios added to make it easier to find friends and create a personalized link-sharing network of your own.
- Single-page viewing experience to speed up navigation across your links and to supercharge content discovery.
- Keyboard shortcuts to get you where you want to go faster than ever.
If you use Evernote, I’m not sure you’ll have a use for this, but for those who want a social experience around the things you clip, save, and bookmark, check it out!
Branch and In-Depth Conversations
The last new platform to take a look at is Branch. No, not BranchOut, that irritating networking tool from Facebook, but Branch.
It is a pretty cool way to extend your Twitter conversations about particular points in an article, blog post, video, podcast, or even book.
I liken it to this: For those of you that use an eReader, you might have noticed you can highlight certain passages in books and read the notes that others have written as they read.
With Branch, you can highlight particular sentences, paragraphs, or quotes in the things you’re reading online and share those on Twitter (instead of the entire thing). Not limited to 140 characters, you can get in-depth about the debate, conversation, or advice around the things that interest you.
But Gini, you might ask, why wouldn’t I just blog if I want to have conversations like that?
You must certainly can! But Branch makes it easy if you don’t have a blog, don’t want to spend the time on a blog post around one particular point, or want to have a conversation with just one person – or a handful of people.
There are tons of ways you can use it – half-baked ideas, longer conversations, debates, crowdsourcing, and more – and I recommend you get in there to test it out.
It just takes a username and password (email address too, I think) and then you can see what you think. Go on. Take five minutes and do it. You can even tweet something to me, if you just wanting to try it.
So there you have it. Lots of news this week. Lots of things to consider. Go forth and prosper!