Inside Facebook

Yesterday, after announcing that it had acquired FriendFeed, Facebook launched a new version of Facebook Search, which for the first time brings real time search to all Facebook users. With the new Facebook Search, users can 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.

We spoke with Leah Pearlman, Product Manager for Search at Facebook, to talk more about what Facebook has learned since it rolled out tests versions of the new Search two months ago – and how real time search will change the future of sharing on Facebook.

Justin Smith: Thanks for your time Leah. How have the tests of the new Facebook Search gone over the last couple months?

Leah Pearlman: We’ve had several iterations since the initial tests went live, but overall the tests ended up going really well. We didn’t get any negative feedback, and we were really pleased to find that people were able to friend and fan at the same rate as they were able to with the previous version of Facebook search.

We’ve been pretty excited because in addition to the feed search functionality this is kind of a new model – whereas before we’d always show 10 results, now we’re returning only the results we have the most confidence in. That is a big win in terms of the new UI.

JS: What changes have been made to the new Search since the tests began?

LP: In the initial tests, whenever anyone searched for a term in which there were results from friends, we would show those as well as public updates posted by users who are sharing their posts with everyone. However, in the last few weeks, we decided that the friend content was highly relevant, but the public content was less relevant, largely because full string search with quotes is not launched yet. So public content is still behind a secondary tab for now.

JS: How well has showing public search results worked in tests so far?

LP: Public results are really highly dependent on the query term and the user. People who have a large number of friends and a large number of friends who post a lot have a very different experience that those who don’t. For audiences who have many friends who post a lot, the friend stream will be highly relevant and pretty comprehensive about things like recent events. However, for those without a lot of friends posting, the friend stream doesn’t produce sufficient results most of the time, so the friend stream is often not more relevant than the public stream for them.

JS: What was the most surprising thing your team discovered when testing the new search?

LP: One, that fewer numbers of results could yield a similar search experience. Also, we think this will change how people will want to share content on Facebook – though we couldn’t really test that that in small test. We’re really hoping to see that a small percentage of users might post more often and about a wider range of topics if they have a wider audience. The new Facebook Search provides a wider, targeted audience who’s more interested in what you’re talking about.

This, in combination with like and share as those are integrated into search, will give posters more positive feedback, encouraging even more posting. There are some similar sites out there that do similar things and we really see the value in it.

JS: Do you have any stats on how feedback from the new search affects posting rates?

LP: It’s still to early, and the tests weren’t big enough. But we’ll see how people use it and make changes appropriately.

Note: Responses are transcribed from notes and may not be exactly verbatim.