Imagining a Facebook Search Engine to Rival Google

With a new option allowing users to search for advertising pages, Facebook has crept another step closer to a search engine. Will the social networking site take the ultimate plunge in its battle against Google and roll out a full-fledged search engine? VentureBeat's Doug Sherret explores how this engine would look and how it could succeed.

Sherret speculates that by combining a decent clone of Google's search results with its own stores of social data, Facebook could have a search engine to rival Google. The search results could be refined based on what networks of friends click, known as 'social search.' Social search, which Google has been dismissive of, could give Facebook a key advantage in targeting ads. (More Facebook stories.)