An Ineluctable Trend

Facebook earlier today announced Graphic Search, a quick way to search various subjects (e.g, photos of certain events, favorite restaurants, etc.) across one's circle of friends or even the vast Facebook community. The announcement met with only mild enthusiasm amongst investors.

The social network’s shares have fallen 3.1% since it announced Graph Search, a service that allows Facebook users to search for information from their friends’, and other users’, profiles.

Analysts say they broadly like the product, but most weren’t ready to adjust their views on Facebook just yet. As of Wednesday morning, no Wall Street analysts had changed their stock recommendations or their estimates for the company’s performance, according to Thomson Reuters.

As a user of tech products but not a fanboy, I stopped being an early adopter decades ago. Let someone else iron out the bugs and prove out the benefits, not to mention drive down the price as the product gains acceptance. Cellular telephones, digital video recorders, and flat screen TVs were all purchased by your humble observer years after they were introduced.

There's no out-of-pocket cost to being a member of Facebook, so the only investment for most users is the time spent posting original materials such as photos, writings, and videos to the network, as well as learning to use it. However, Graphic Search does not yet appear to be the obvious "killer app" that draws in new members or induces current users' eyeballs to linger.

More likely, the great Facebook attractor will be economics, as more employers perceive benefits from its use. One example is in the seemingly staid world of accounting, according to Mark White, Chief Technical Officer of Deloitte:

social tools such as microblogs, wikis, internal social networks, instant messaging applications and threaded discussion forums can help CFOs improve finance organization performance. “The financial close-the-books process is an example of how social software can drive improvements in finance’s decision-making and processes, by making the close more transparent, efficient, repeatable and defensible,” he says.

Much as we are fond of the old ways, the use of social tools and social networks is an ineluctable trend, even to accountants, who must keep up or be left behind.  © 2013 Stephen Yuen