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Facebook Launches Real-Time Search for Everyone
August 10th, 2009
| By Justin Smith | 40 Comments » |
On the same day in which Facebook acquired FriendFeed, the company has just rolled out its new real-time search engine for all users.
With the new Facebook Search, which is still accessed by entering search terms in the box on the top right of any page, users will now see the latest status updates and shared content from both friends and all users who have made their profile open to everyone – in addition to more static types of results like applications, pages, notes, and groups.
For example, here’s what real-time results for “Iran” now look like:
Facebook Search is now directly competitive with Twitter’s real-time search engine, which the company recently made more prominent for new users. However, the new Facebook search differs from Twitter in two important ways:
- Updates from your friends, which are usually not public, come before updates from everyone.
- All updates contain rich content in-line, from videos to music to thumbnails of shared links.
It’s important to note that updates from friends are usually private, and not on the public timeline. Although today Facebook is making public timeline search available for the first time ever, it is still prioritizing this new form of social search above searching the public timeline. Earlier this year, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Inside Facebook that the future of Facebook lies in a hybrid public/private sharing model, but we’re still in the early days of seeing the ways that Facebook can leverage the social graph in providing more relevant search results for time-sensitive or research-related queries.
As Facebook engineering manager Akhil Wable writes,
By being able to search more types of content that are being shared on the site, you can easily find out your friends’ evening plans and recently frequented restaurants by searching for “dinner,” discover which of your friends are following Michael Schumacher’s comeback during the “Formula 1″ season by searching for the race series, or query “economy” to see if people or your favorite news sources feel that the recession is turning around. You also can search for a company or product to learn what people are saying about that brand.
However, the launch of public timeline search is still an important step forward in the evolution of Facebook’s search services. Now, marketers and analysts will have another tool to monitor conversations on Facebook in addition to Facebook’s Lexicon tool, which only shows trends at a very high level. Facebook started allowing users to open up their profiles to everyone in March, in an attempt to better serve users who want to share their updates more openly as opposed to using Facebook’s robust privacy controls.
Web results from Microsoft are also included (at the bottom of the page) as part of Facebook’s search partnership with Microsoft, who also owns a 1.6% stake in Facebook. However, Microsoft is not contributing search technology to the new Facebook Search.
APIs Critical to the Future of Real-Time Search
But as we wrote recently, APIs are critical to Facebook’s plans to dominate real-time search. Today, hundreds of third party applications and monitoring tools are built on top of the Twitter Search API to keep tabs on product mentions, hot trends, and consumer sentiment. Given that Facebook has at least an order of magnitude more active users than Twitter, Facebook should be able to return much larger and broader data sets to marketers and journalists. In addition, since Facebook has much deeper data on user identity, it should be able to provide even richer types of aggregate real time search data if it so desires.
The consumer search applications are also clear. Facebook has the potential to displace Google and other search engines for queries on content discovery, product recommendations, news, and more. While Google makes a living inferring authority from links, Facebook will be able to infer authority from shares and social proximity. This is data Google largely doesn’t have access to (at least, full access to). If Facebook were to make it easier for users to do real time searches from a variety of applications and devices, it could become a more significant search player in the future, which in turn could drive substantial new revenue streams for the company.
Conclusion
Nevertheless, the full launch of real-time and public timeline search today mark an important step in Facebook’s evolution. Though it’s still very early in the evolution of Facebook’s search product, the company is increasingly committed to investing in search infrastructure to bring the vision of social search closer to reality – which could increasingly threaten Google and Microsoft’s search dominance.
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August 10th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
Is this live? I can’t find it anywhere!
August 10th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
I can’t seem to find it either.
Neal Saferstein
http://nealsaferstein.com
August 10th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
[...] segunda-feira, quando foi anunciada a compra, o Facebook noticiou também o lançamento de seu novo sistema interno de busca, por meio do qual você poderá, por exemplo, saber “em [...]
August 10th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
I cant’t find it either… I’m from malaysia…
August 10th, 2009 at 9:09 pm
same here the search is still old and normal for me
thought this would be because I am in Pakistan so probably the change might take some time to float but other people also having the same issue as i can see here
August 10th, 2009 at 11:00 pm
Search results are still the same. I haven’t seen any change in it.
August 11th, 2009 at 1:04 am
Me too, nothing has changed….??
August 11th, 2009 at 2:34 am
i like facebook but i have not got it
August 11th, 2009 at 4:03 am
[...] also saw the detail from InsideFacebook which talked about real-time search where it said: With the new Facebook Search, which is still accessed by entering search terms in [...]
August 11th, 2009 at 5:59 am
[...] undrar lite hur det egentligen funkar så har StyleWalker skrivit ett bra blogginlägg i frågan. Somliga hävdar att Facebook igår förutom att köpa FriendFeed även drog igång sin real time search vilket [...]
August 11th, 2009 at 6:20 am
[...] Την ίδια μέρα το Facebook λανσάρει μηχανή αναζήτησης πραγματικού χρόνου. Δεν έχει σχέση με αυτή της Google, πιο [...]
August 11th, 2009 at 7:12 am
[...] FriendFeed has been an innovator in social sharing and search since its inception. A month after its public release, FriendFeed added the functionality to search by friends, individual shared items, or all of FriendFeed. Last month FriendFeed rolled out real-time, instantly streaming search. Together these features resemble the real-time search functions that Facebook released yesterday. [...]
August 11th, 2009 at 7:51 am
[...] clear target here is Twitter, which has enabled real-time search for a while. One important difference is that Facebook searches return multimedia results (photos, videos, etc). A second difference: [...]
August 11th, 2009 at 9:59 am
Real time search is definitely an incredibly functional tool. A good website in this space is http://www.gethighnote.com, which has search as well as track and share. It’s results are pretty useful and the track has helped me find some pretty cool information that might otherwise get lost.
August 11th, 2009 at 11:09 am
I’m still seeing the old search on Facebook as well. Perhaps this is only open to those users they previously extended the beta feature for the targeted publisher for personal profiles?
August 11th, 2009 at 11:40 am
I’m experiencing the same problem – tested the search but I’m still seeing the old search results. I don’t see public updates.
August 11th, 2009 at 11:42 am
Hi all, it sounds like Facebook Search still hasn’t rolled out across the globe. It should be doing so momentarily though based on Facebook’s statements yesterday.
August 11th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
I think Facebook has bitten off more than it can chew.
August 11th, 2009 at 11:18 pm
Hah, before I even read this article my first search was “Iran” to test it out
August 14th, 2009 at 10:02 am
[...] to outperform its rivals in the quest for advertising dollars, it needs better search. And with the new real-time search engine Facebook launched this week, that’s exactly what users [...]
August 14th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
[...] Inside Facebook reports: With the new Facebook Search, which is still accessed by entering search terms in the box on the [...]
August 17th, 2009 at 5:48 am
[...] and communicate back. Lately, we’ve seen indicators they want to find ways to improve real-time search, which means they can help consumers make real time [...]
August 17th, 2009 at 7:13 am
[...] des dollars publicitaires, ils a besoin d’un meilleur outil de recherche et avec le nouveau moteur de recherche en temps réel lancé par Facebook cette semaine, c’est exactement ce que peuvent désormais faire les [...]
August 17th, 2009 at 11:47 pm
[...] to outperform its rivals in the quest for advertising dollars, it needs better search. And with the new real-time search engine Facebook launched this week, that’s exactly what users got. via [...]
August 28th, 2009 at 12:09 am
[...] more from the original source: Facebook Launches Real-Time Search for Everyone August 10th, 2009 in Uncategorized | tags: consumer-search, content-discovery, living-inferring, [...]
September 14th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
[...] Facebook Page directly by fans, as well as search public comments made by Facebook users through Facebook’s new real time search. However, starting today, all @ tags will appear on the wall of the Page as well, even though users [...]
September 15th, 2009 at 11:01 am
[...] Facebook Page directly by fans, as well as search public comments made by Facebook users through Facebook’s new real time search. However, starting today, all @ tags will appear on the wall of the Page as well, even though users [...]
October 9th, 2009 at 6:08 pm
there are many real time search engines cropping up. http://sency.com recently launched and it offers a few unique angles to the real time web space…
October 13th, 2009 at 8:57 am
[...] Wall posts, events and “posts by everyone” can now be displayed in Facebook Search. By creating regularly updated content, you will significantly increase your chances for being shown. Simple wall posts with branded keywords or branded events will give you extra visibility in the new real time Facebook Search. [...]
October 21st, 2009 at 6:14 am
[...] recent months the big players have shown that they want a piece of the action too: Google, Bing and Facebook have all taken steps to keep up with the real-time [...]
October 21st, 2009 at 10:42 am
[...] that included a more obvious option for making status updates public. Then, in August, it rolled out a new, real-time search interface on the [...]
October 26th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
I am trying to fine myself on facebook tell why i cant
October 27th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Sick trying 2 find people and cant anyone got any info lets share ta love heather xx
October 27th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
sick trying 2 find people anyone got any info 2 share im all ears ta heather xx
November 6th, 2009 at 4:51 am
v been trying to open my account but to no avail.Idont have acces to my account which means i canot talk to my pals or use my wall to chart.Iwas please requesting if its possible u can please make it activeso as to enjoy services of the facebook.
November 19th, 2009 at 12:21 am
persian
December 13th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
Chisbrowm I saw you on ellen and she said she love you very much.
January 7th, 2010 at 12:51 am
I need a search engine that people visit to find past friends’
I’m looking for a friend named BETH THOMAS, lived in Baldwinpark california USA in 1955,would be 75 yrs old today. any one can give me advise on how to find her all sugestions will be apreciated
January 10th, 2010 at 9:40 am
i am looking for Tina Patterson from St. Mary’s Kansas who i met when she moved to Topeka. Tina the new phone number you txt me got deleted before i was able to retrieve it! I’ve been looking for you ever since. Anyone who knows Tina please let her know Mom is trying to find her! I miss her very much!
January 27th, 2010 at 9:47 pm
[...] tras adquirir FriendFeed en Agosto de 2009 anunció el lanzamiento de la búsqueda en tiempo real abierta para todo el [...]