Facebook quietly launches new site for professional services

The site curates a list of local businesses, ranking them based on the preferences of each user

(Updated with comment from Facebook)

You hear the same thing every presidential election: that small businesses drive the economy. That is likely true in real life and it seems like the same thing is holding true on the Internet as well, if the number of companies entering the local professional services space is any indication. 

The latest to do so is Facebook, which quietly launched a new feature called Professional Services, it has been confirmed to VatorNews.

"We're in the early stages of testing a way for people to easily find more Pages for the services they're interested in," a Facebook spokesperson told me.

The sit was launched so quietly, in fact, that the news was reported by Search Engine Land, based on a tip from another site.

The feature takes advantage of the vast number of business pages that have been created on the network. When you first visit the landing page, it automatically shows each user specific categories based on their location. The ones I see on my page are plumber; spa, beauty and personal care; event planning; pet service; medical & health; arts & marketing; automotive; and business services.

There are also a slew of additional services at the bottom of the page as well, with more categories and subcategories for each one, over 80 in all. 

If I click on pet services, for example, I get a list of businesses, based on rating and location, complete with hours of business and a phone number, along with excerpts of reviews from other users. It also displays a map that shows where businesses are located.

The results, which are based on on Facebook's rating system, also seem to be curated to each user. Search Engine Land noted that it saw different results when it searched while logged into Facebook, and when it was searched while logged out. 

Indeed, I had the same thing happen when I tried it. Also, one of the photos displayed on one of the search categories that I see is one my girlfriend took, so it definitely does seem to be the case that they are catering the results to each individual user. Also, that's a little weird, and I wish they didn't do that. 

Given how much data Facebook has on its network for all of these businesses, 50 million of them in all as of this month, it's not a huge surprise that it wold develop a feature like this. After all, the local service marketplace is a thriving business, which we know just from the sheer number of companies that are currently competing inside of it.

Of course there's always Angie's List, Yelp and Craigslist for finding local service providers, but now Amazon is also trying to compete as well. It debuted a professional services provider in March called Amazon Home Service, which it launched with 700 services categories, including iPhone repair, yoga classes, car maintenance, TV wall-mounting, car battery installation and house cleaning.

The most successful of all of the companies in space is probably Thumbtack, which now has over five million projects requested every year in over 1,000 categories. The company operates in all 50 states, and now has over 200,000 unique paying professionals. Thumbtack now generates $1 billion in revenue for independent small businesses every year and has have more paying pros on its site than both Angie’s List and Yelp combined.

The company also just raised a $125 million funding round, giving it a $1.3 billion valuation.

The question is how far will Facebook take this? Is it content simply to help curate the top local businesses, giving out information for the best rated services? Or will it take the next step and actually begin to match up users and professionals, as many of those other site now do? 

This could be an interesting new revenue stream for the company, if it does choose to go that route.

Right now Professional Services only seems to be available on desktop. 

(Image source: