moTi - 11:37 am on Jan 16, 2013 (gmt 0)

We must look at this from the standpoint of an average user of Facebook.

while i second that, i come to a very different conclusion. apart from that it varies considerably across age groups and countries, which portion of the users do actually reveal something meaningful about themselves? and does that fraction suffice to give some useful everyday answers?

overall, i think the effectiveness of queries from a given user about other persons' likes (and that's what it seems to be all about at this time) will turn out rather underwhelming. ask yourself and for all i care ask a typical user: how much actually usable information will they personally get out of facebook connections? i really doubt that it will be that much, from queries like "which restaurants in new york do my indian friends like?" (a similar example from the facebook blog). if not privacy then large-scale incompleteness of provided personal information combined with lack of relevant peers will place quite a big hold on usefulness for the searcher. people are way too enthusiastic once again.