I "like" Lamborghini!

I do so for many different reasons. I love the design, I love fast cars, it signals luxury, it's a classic, I identify myself with the brand and so on. But I will not buy one because I cannot afford it.

I suspect I am not the only one, I know it's certainly not the only thing I have liked and so the graph is filled with a lot of "likes" but much fewer potential buyers. In other words advertisers have very little knowledge about whether I am in the market for their product or not.

Open Graph is a retrospective tool not a predictive tool.
When you check in at a concerts or a restaurant you are already there, the ticket has been purchased, the dinner has been eaten, the means of transportation has been taken. Social Graph know a lot about who you are and who you were, where you are, where you have been, but it knows very little about who you are going to be and where you are headed. In other words Open Graph might know more and more about your history but it knows very little about your future either immediate or long term....

Take in contrast Google. When I search for a product, a service, a restaurant etc. on Google, the chances that I am an interested customer is high. Where a "like" takes very little effort to do, in contrast searching, takes a lot more effort. We do not do it unless it's somehow important and top of mind.

Without intent the open graph is blind. Without intent it's almost impossible to distinguish between noise and signal. To repeat. I might like a lot of things but am I going buy any of them?

Without a proper search it's hard to detect this intent and to know when a customer is most receptive to sales. This is the primary secret of Googles success. They know exactly when and what you want to buy. They created an ad-network where they make money even when you don't. Where Facebook is merely decentralizing it's ability to collect information about the users, through likes, shares and other means, Google is decentralizing it's revenue model!

Therefore the question really is the following:

1) Is Facebook going to turn into a search engine querying outside it's own closed garden?
2) Do Facebook have other tricks up it's sleave we just don't know about.
3) Has Facebook invented some way of extrapolating intent out of the knowledge about our past?

To answer the first question first. I don't believe they will at least not in any forseeable future. It would simply be too big of a paradigm shift for them. On the other hand the search they have could certainly be improved.

For question number 2) The answer is probably yes. I see them already experimenting with displaying ads at the top of my notificiations.They are on their way with a host of new social buttons. They will allow for you to pay for others to see your posts and so on.

But if those are their only tricks for selling to me, then it's also very telling for my question number 3) which would be no. Facebook haven't invented a way to extrapolate intent out of my open graph. Cause if they had they wouldn't have to use bruteforce like they do today. And this is the Achilles heel of Facebook. Without a proper way to locate intent Open Graphs is never going to be a truly successful strategy.

I don't think we are missing the bigger point. I think FB will have to find a way to understand my intent and I am not sure they are in a position to do that.