Shares of Facebook (FB) have just gone into the green, rising 34 cents, or 1%, to $31.29 after opening higher then briefly trending down, as the company’s media event gets underway at 1 pm, Eastern time, at its headquarters in Menlo Park, California.
Speculation about the event has included the possibility the company will offer some kind of search product, or perhaps changes to the “news feed” function of its mobile applications, which might improve advertising yields.
Engadget‘s Michael Gorman is on the scene, live blogging.
Stand by for news.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg,�on stage at the event, has opened up the topic of something called “Graph Search,” a reference to the social graph, the term the company uses for the network of connections between people.
Google�(GOOG), meanwhile, have rebounded from earlier losses, rising $9.57, or 1.4%, to $732.82.
Update: This seems to be going a bit better for Google than Facebook; Facebook shares are now backing off of gains, down 38 cents.
Shares of Yelp (YELP) are taking it hard as Zuckerberg detailed how one can search for restaurants in the area, for example. The stock is down $1.39, or over 6%, at $20.58.
Here’s the page for graph search, where you can see demos and background information. As for asking actual queries, such as “photos I’ve liked,” there’s a link to sign up for the limited-access beta test.
Zuckerberg said Facebook has partnered with�Microsoft‘s�(MSFT) Bing search engine to bring in broader results as well from the Web.
That remark seems to have slowed Google shares. The stock is now down $2.68 at $720.57.
Gorman quotes Zuckerberg as saying Facebook “would love to work with Google,” and that “We just haven’t gotten it worked out with Google yet.”
Update: Topeka Capital Markets’s Victor Anthony, who has a Buy rating on the shares and a $36 price target, this afternoon offers his initial impression on the search graph. Anthony thinks investors shouldn’t get hung up on the fact Facebook didn’t talk a lot about how it will monetize the technology.
“Missing from the presentation was a monetization component of the social search engine, and this is likely the key reason why the stock has pared back recent gains (along with a sell-the-news trade).”
“We caution investors not to take this short-sighted view as this is just the beginning stages of what we believe will be a huge monetization lever for Facebook.”
Google, moreover, should pay attention, he writes, because, “any search activity that keeps users away from Google, is quite frankly competition for Google; Facebook has the advantage of some walled-off content; user content saves Facebook money versus Google’s investments; and “Facebook has the ability to market the service to members and advertisers as an integrated index which contains Facebook social content including text, rich media, and links to third party content.”
“This is in large part unavailable to Google.”
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