Facebook's mystery "press event" on Tuesday could reveal a more robust
search feature that would intensify the competition between the social
networking giant and its rival Google Inc.
Facebook is holding the
event at 10 a.m. (1 p.m. EST) at its Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters.
The company has not said what it plans to announce. Last week, it
invited bloggers and journalists to "come see what we're building."
The company probably won't be showing off a new office building -unless it decided to make its invitation very literal.
It's
also unlikely to be unveiling a much-rumored "Facebook phone" -unless
CEO Mark Zuckerberg has changed his mind recently. Last fall, as he'd
done on numerous occasions, he publicly shot down speculation that
Facebook was building its own smartphone.
"It is so clearly the
wrong strategy for us," Zuckerberg said at a September technology
conference in his first public interview after Facebook's May initial
public offering. "It doesn't move the needle for us."
As far as
search goes, users would likely welcome a better way to sift through
Facebook for people, businesses, events and everything else available on
the vast online network.
The company, whose much-ballyhooed
initial public offering turned out to be a disappointment, may also talk
about new advertising features. Facebook has been especially focused on
building up is mobile advertising business, since most of its users
access Facebook through smartphones and tablets.
Research firm
eMarketer estimates that Facebook, the No. 2 company in the U.S. mobile
advertising market, had an 8.8 percent share last year -up from zero in
2011. That compared with No. 1 Google's 56.6 percent. This year,
Facebook is expected to grow its share to 12.2 percent, while remaining
far behind Google.
Facebook, which has been calling itself a
"mobile-first" company, has been growing thanks to increased use of its
mobile apps, improving ad quality and its emerging advertising network,
called Facebook Exchange, said Baird analyst Colin Sebastian in a recent
note to investors.
"Our field checks suggest that the recently
launched Facebook Exchange is helping advertisers target consumers more
effectively," he said.
Sebastian thinks that over time, Facebook
will make more money from mobile ads, helped by its increasing
experience in the space, as well as its "ever-increasing user profile
data."