Gadgetory

you've always been able to search on Facebook but the interface was clunky and it was always really hard to find what you were looking for now Facebook is rolling out graph search a much more robust search tool that lets you search just about anything friends have shared with you on facebook so the first thing to do if you haven't already is sign up for graph search beta which you can do by heading over to facebook.com / about / graph search and scroll down to the bottom and hit sign up once you get graph search facebook will alert you and your navigation bar will morph into something that looks like this so the search bar is on the left and all of your friend requests messages and notifications are on the right now you can use graph search to search the web and if you search for something like oh how to find lost iphone it'll redirect you to a Bing search within Facebook but most of the time you'll use graph search to search within facebook content so let me show you a few examples so i can search for something like photos i liked in 2013 and all the photos i liked in 2013 will show up but i can also expand that search make it more specific by saying something like photos in 2013 i liked and commented on and the results will be much more specific so that's an example of how you can search within content that you or your friends have contributed but you can also search public facebook content so for example i can search photos taken in san francisco california and any photo that was shared publicly and shot in san francisco will show up now if you click on the module on the right you can further refine that surge by defining photos of people the date the photo is taken and so on another fun way to use graph search is to get recommendations so I can search for something like books read by CEOs people who are CEOs and a list of books read by people who are CEOs will show up in the result I can also do something like friends who like gluten-free restaurants the possibilities are endless and this might sound crazy but you might start using graph search to find a date so watch out eat harmony because check this out I can do something like men who live in San Francisco and like basketball and are over the age of 25 okay so it looks like this guy is in a relationship so let's further refine the search and say single men who live in San Francisco and like basketball and are over the age of 25 so as you get started with graph search have fun with it find a date or maybe discover a new restaurant in town it might change the way you use facebook oh and before you ask don't worry about your privacy settings they haven't changed all graph search does is surface the data you and your friends have already contributed with that being said though you might want to go ahead and check your privacy settings again go ahead and visit this link for my blog on that topic for cnet.com I'm Sharon Backman you