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Zuckerberg: Facebook to move into search

Facebook CEO says that "at some point" Facebook intends to get into the search business.

Charles Cooper Former Executive Editor / News
Charles Cooper was an executive editor at CNET News. He has covered technology and business for more than 25 years, working at CBSNews.com, the Associated Press, Computer & Software News, Computer Shopper, PC Week, and ZDNet.
Charles Cooper
Here's a Tuesday afternoon headline courtesy of Mark Zuckerberg: Facebook search.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook Disrupt conference. CNET
Speaking at TechCrunch's Disrupt conference, Facebook's CEO didn't get specific about the timing. But he left little doubt about the direction in which the company was moving:

"We do a billion queries a day and we aren't even trying. Mostly trying to find people or brand pages or apps. There is a big opportunity in search, evolving to giving a set of answers to a specific question and Facebook is uniquely positioned to do that. For example, 'Which of my friends or friends of friends work in a company I might like to work at?'"

"At some point we will do it," he said.

Speculation about a Facebook move into search has been around for years. A couple of years ago, Facebook began to surface web pages in its own search results in connection with how often users "liked" those pages. But this was the first time that Zuckerberg has directly addressed the question about where search fared in Facebook's future.

Zuckerberg fielded questions on a number of topics from his interlocutor on stage, Mike Arrington. But going to this widely-anticipated appearance, there was no shortage of pundits weighing in on questions they would like to hear answered. Search was not on their lists.

Watch this: Facebook hard at work on search