It’s not what you get out of it that matters, it’s what you put in.	你从中得到的内容并不重要，关键是你输入的信息。
That is the real significance of Facebook’s inelegantly named Graph Search, the new “social” search engine it unveiled this week. The company that probably already knows more about you than any other single business would now like you to divulge one other, extremely valuable thing: what you want.	这就是Facebook最近推出的名称平淡无奇的新“社交”搜索引擎——Graph Search的真正意义所在。Facebook这家可能比任何其他公司都了解你们的公司，现在希望大家能够透露另一个非常有价值的信息：你们想要什么？
A deeper move by Facebook into search has been widely expected for a long time, and no wonder. It is hard to overstate the commercial significance of being able to divine someone’s needs and intentions at the very moment that they are at their strongest. There is nothing that does that quite like the search box.	很长时间以来人们就普遍预期Facebook将进一步深入搜索领域，这是意料之中的。在人们的某项需求最强烈的时候，预测他们的需要和意图，这其中的商业意义难以估量。在搜索引擎方面这点表现最为明显。
Google, the unchallenged leader in this kind of divination, sucked up about 48.5 per cent of all global online advertising last year, based on an estimate of the total market by media buying agency ZenithOptimedia. That was even higher than in 2011 and puts Google on track to devour more than half of the entire internet advertising pie this year or next.	媒体传播机构实力媒体(ZenithOptimedia)对整个市场的评估显示，需求预测方面全球当之无愧的领导者谷歌(Google)去年吸走了48.5%的全球在线广告业务。这一比例甚至高于2011年，使得谷歌有望在今年或者明年吞噬整个英特网广告业务的一半以上。
With the rise of the mobile phone as the preferred method of internet access, the stakes are only going higher. At least when it comes to smartphones, being able to deliver relevant, timely and usable commercial messages has become the be all and end all. The word “mobile” was conspicuous by its absence as Mark Zuckerberg took the wraps off Graph Search. But that shouldn’t detract from his real intentions. Facebook has taken to calling itself a mobile-first company of late, and a more easily searchable social database is made for this world.	使用手机上网的人数越来越多，因而这其中的利害关系就更大了。至少从智能手机方面来看，是否能够传递相关、及时、有用的商业信息，已经成为决定成败的东西。马克•扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)在为Graph Search揭幕的时候没有提到“移动”这个词，这引起了人们的注意。但这不应抹杀他的真正意图。Facebook最近将自己称为以“移动为先”的公司，并致力于为世界提供一个更容易搜索的社交数据库。
The smartphone has assumed a role that no other technology has achieved before: guide, personal assistant and trusted informant, it is the remote control for a digital life. Remaking Facebook for this new platform is already in full swing. So far, this has involved stripping down the company’s complex PC service into a suite of simplified mobile apps, such as messaging and photo-sharing.	智能手机现在的功能已经超越了任何其他技术：导航、个人助理、可靠的信息提供者，它已经成为数字生活的遥控器。为这一新的平台重新打造Facebook已经如火如荼地展开。目前为止，该公司的复杂PC服务已经转变为一系列简单化的移动应用程序，比如消息传送和照片分享。
The natural-language aspect of the search service launched this week – type in words and Facebook will try to deduce what you mean and return something useful. Followed to its natural conclusion, the Facebook vision of the future is one in which you can whisper anything into your device and it will find the most relevant answer from a social universe organised around you. Voice-activated, natural-language queries. Sound familiar?	从自然语言方面看最近发布的搜索服务：输入单词，Facebook就会试着推断你的意思，然后反馈一些有用的东西。根据其自然结论，Facebook对未来的预想就是，你可以对着设备随便说点什么，然后它就将根据你周围的社交圈子给出相关性最大的答案。语音激活，自然语言查询，听上去是不是很熟悉？
Apple’s Siri has delivered an early demonstration of what might be possible, even if the technology is not yet fully ready. If Facebook can crack this problem, there will be no shortage of advertisers lining up to put their money to work.	苹果(Apple)的Siri抢先一步展示了什么是可能的，即使技术还没有完全准备好。如果Facebook可以解决这个问题，那么肯定不缺乏投资的广告商。
Unfortunately, this will be easier said than done – and not just because of the considerable technical challenges involved.	不幸的是，说得容易做到难，这其中不仅涉及大量的技术挑战。
The problem is partly the limited range of search requests that Facebook is likely to be good at handling. You may like to post comments about films or restaurants you have enjoyed but not many people discuss their favourite cold remedies or the plumber they have found most reliable. That lack of comprehensiveness is one reason why Google’s place as the “start page of the web” will be very hard to replicate. Another is the value that Facebook can mine from the information at its fingertips. Its private database of social connections – and all the likes and preferences of its users – is still no match for the entirety of the web.	一个问题就是Facebook擅长处理的搜索要求的范围有限。或许你喜欢发布对自己喜欢的电影或者餐馆的评论，但没有多少人会讨论最喜欢的感冒药或者他们认为最可靠的水管工。这种综合性的欠缺是谷歌“网络起始页”的地位将很难被复制的一个原因。另一个问题是，Facebook能从其唾手可得的信息中挖到多少价值。就算其用户再喜欢再偏爱它，Facebook社交网络的私人数据库依然不能与整个网络相比。
You won’t necessarily like a restaurant simply because one of your friends did: sometimes, the views of thousands of like-minded strangers posting their thoughts on Yelp really can be a better guide. And by giving anyone the chance to “follow” tastemakers and trendsetters, influence can spread every bit as fast on Twitter as on Facebook. Yet, as the social hub, Facebook’s gravitational pull threatens to suck in an increasing amount of this user-generated content. Also, what is left will be increasingly hard for Google to index – as evidenced by its battles with companies such as Yelp and Twitter over tapping into their content.	或许你并不会仅仅因为一个朋友喜欢一家餐馆你就会喜欢：有时候，Yelp上数千个志趣相投的陌生人的观点确实是更好的向导。由于任何人都可以“跟随”风尚引领者和意见领袖，其影响力就可以像在Twitter和Facebook上一样迅速传播。然而，作为一个社交中心，Facebook的吸引力很可能会吸收越来越多的这种用户产生的内容。剩下的内容谷歌也将越来越难以染指。它与Yelp和Twitter这类公司在利用后者内容上的斗争就是证明。
It was in preparation for just this day, after all, that Google came up with its Google Plus social network.	谷歌直到现在才准备好推出其Google Plus社交网络。
The battle lines in the new search wars have now been drawn. From Amazon, which handles more product-related searches than any other company, to Apple’s iPhone-based Siri and now Facebook’s social search, the new combatants are starting from their own positions of relative advantage.	新的搜索战线已经拉开。从处理产品相关搜索多于任何其他公司的亚马逊(Amazon)，到基于iPhone的苹果Siri，再到现在的Facebook社交搜索，新的“参战者”将借助各自的相对优势开战。
The outcome of this battle, as much as the clash of smartphone hardware and operating systems, will determine the shape of the digital future.	这场战争以及智能手机硬件和操作系统之间竞争的结果，将决定未来数字世界的模样。
Richard Waters is the Financial Times’s West Coast Managing Editor	本文作者理查德•沃特斯是英国《金融时报》美国西海岸主编
	译者:王慧玲