Facebook Hasn't Even Begun To Exploit Everything It Knows About You
When Mark Zuckerberg addressed Facebook investors last week, he outlined a goal that sounded more like a philosophical quest than a business plan: A major priority for Facebook, he said, was "understanding the world."
No, this wasn't the kick-off to Zuckerberg's journey to self-discovery. But it did mark a new phase in Facebook's journey to discover us in ways that are ever more detailed. Thanks to artificial intelligence, a technology Zuckerberg highlighted as a key focus, Facebook may soon understand not only what we do on the social network, but what we mean. In short, what we tell Facebook is no longer enough. The social network now wants to read between the lines. It's a critical difference that could have Facebook's members -- and advertisers -- using the site in entirely new ways.
Facebook's mission to "understand the world" underscores its growing rivalry with Google and attempt to position itself as a social search engine. With a more thorough grasp of what we're saying about the world, Facebook could also answer more of our questions about the world. And that, in turn, would be a sweet deal for advertisers, who interpret "searching" as "shopping."
