A powerful less-known function on Facebook – The Graph Search

 

As an expat I continuously use Facebook to network and to meet up with friends. Whenever I travel to a new city, I check first whether any of my friends live there. Graph Search allows me to gather this information. It is still in beta, therefore it needs to activated here and the language should be changed to English (US). It does not work from the mobile application, only from the desktop web site.

For example a simple query can be formulated this way to find out who is living in Berlin:

My friends who live in Berlin, Germany

N.B.: Feel free to use the autocomplete or suggestions. The TAB key can also help.

Or maybe it is worth to get some tips from the buddies of my friends:

My friends of friends who live in Berlin, Germany

Also there are some nice activities in the city, that my friends attend. Let us check it out:

Events iBerlin, Germany that my friends will attend

Any good places to eat out? Let Facebook answer this question.

Restaurants in Berlin, Germany that my friends like

However Graph Search can be also used to gather more information about your friends. I do not recommend to fully trust this, because things happen in the real life. Some examples:

What kind of pictures a friend likes:

Photos that János Binder likes

Which girls are interested in liking my photos. Maybe it is time to poke them 🙂 :

Females that like my photos

Photos that “my friends of interest”* likes – Replace the name with your friends name

List the photos that I posted in 2014.

Photos in 2014 that János Binder posted

What kind of event do I attend, what kind of music I like:

Events that János Binder attended

Music that János Binder likes

At last, but not at least, some fun with Graph Search 🙂

More examples: More clever uses

P.S.: There are some differences between various nationalities. For example Graph Search works pretty well on my Hungarian friends, because they share way more information on Facebook that my German friends.