Facebook is secretly testing a new feature, called for the moment Facebook Service, that will lead users to find the best suppliers and businesses in a certain area.
What are Facebook Services
Through , the social network has compiled a search directory of professional service providers, such as contractors, plumbers, doctors, workshops, decorators and much more. What’s interesting about this whole Facebook Services thing is that efforts expand beyond local professionalsto include other types of businesses.
Today, the site itself has a simple design, with a search box for the business category you are looking to find. Also, when navigating, it adjusts to your current location, showing you a photo of the city in question in the background. For now, the site is only available in desktop versionalthough we could say that Facebook already offers a solution of this type for mobile through the «Nearby Places«, at the end of the navigation in the mobile application.
What information does Facebook Services offer?
After you perform a search, business or service provider information will be provided to you thanks to the data that Facebook already has of all the existing business pages, including general description details, phones, hours of operation, location, reviews and overall rating.
The search results page on Facebook Services it also shows a map with the locations of the businesses, which means that Facebook could potentially «gain ground» a , at least in the aspect of finding nearby businesses or services for the user.
All of this could mean that Facebook is using other data of the user who is exploring, such as the fact of knowing when they visited a page, rated a business, liked the page or had friends who liked it, among others. Contrary to what often happens, Facebook Services are not limited to the US from the beginning, since results are already available for Asia, Europe and other regions.
Do you think that Facebook Services can really compete as a search system against databases as solid as Google’s? Share your opinion.
Stay informed of the most relevant news on our news channel
Facebook Comments
Disqus