Mashable, June 16, 2009 08:05 PM PDT
Let’s face it: Facebook Search really isn’t all that impressive of a tool. It does a good job of searching for people, groups, and apps, but doesn’t fare well at all if you search a general term like “Iran Election.” With all of the information available on Facebook, wouldn’t it be nice to find images, videos, links, and status updates relevant to a search keyword? Meanwhile, the lack of such a feature means that Twitter search has become the go-to place for realtime information.
Facebook isn’t blind to the issue. The world’s largest social network revealed today that it’s experimenting with a new type of search that could actually make it a social alternative to Google, Bing, and other major search engines. Most importantly, however, it can begin to challenge Twitter in realtime search. Soon, when you search for a recipe or the latest on the Iran crisis, related status updates and photos from friends and public Facebook profiles will appear. In fact, it’s already active for a small group of users.
In a blog announcement, the social networking giant explained that it believes our friends are a strong source of relevant information. If I care about the season finale of Lost, it stands to reason I would want to know how my friends felt about it. This new search feature would do just that. From the Facebook blog:
Those of you in the test group will see new layouts for search results that will continue to include people’s profiles, Facebook Pages, groups and applications, and some entirely new Search features. With the test, you will be able to search your News Feed for the most recent status updates, photos, links, videos and notes being shared by your friends and the Facebook Pages of which you’re a fan. You will also be able to search for status updates, posted links and notes in Search from people who have chosen to make their profile and content available to everyone. As always, you can control what content you’re sharing by editing your privacy settings here.
The people around us are a powerful source for finding information about new and interesting information — from the latest on last night’s episode of “The Office” and suggestions on what to do for your next vacation to current events.
In short: Facebook is testing this feature with only a small group of users, the feature searches status updates, links, notes, photos, and videos, and it can search both your friends and anybody who has a public profile (like mine). This puts it in direct competition with Twitter search: a realtime search of public messages.
The key question is whether Facebook has waited too long to get into the realtime search game.
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