Facebook Shares Hit $22 After Search Engine Announcement

Sites include Facebook.com . Published on September 30th, 2012. Written by Anthony West.

Finally, a bit of good news for Facebook, Zuckerberg and the company’s investors. Shortly after the embattled CEO spoke at TechCrunch Disrupt event recently about Facebook’s intent to enter the search market, investors latch onto the news and had a bit of enthusiasm about the stock.

The stock jumped from $19.46 to $22 on the news and for many who’s been watching the stock slide, the $2.54 gain was a breath of fresh air. Just a few weeks ago analysts were predicting that Facebook’s share price will dip below the $15 a share mark. Needless to say this would have been a disaster and so it seems the announcement of intent to enter the search market is part plan, part PR stunt.

Whatever the case, Facebook search is leaving a lot of people excited about the future of the search market. Google of course is Facebook’s biggest competitor but Zuckerberg feels the way in which Facebook will approach search will be radical and a welcome change: “search engines are really evolving to give you a set of answers, not just ‘type in something and show me some relevant stuff’, but ‘I have this specific question, answer this question for me’.”

This ‘new approach’ to search will no doubt be interesting and if Facebook can pull it off, it will give searchers a fresh way of solving their problems using search. Now all Zuckerberg and co has to do is roll out a timeline for implementation. That will really get the stock price rising again.