F acebook on Monday made it possible for users
to perform keyword searches for individual posts
on the social network.
"With a quick search, you can get back to a fun
video from your graduation, a news article you've
been meaning to read, or photos from your friend's
wedding last summer," said Tom Stocky,
Facebook's vice president of search.
Users still have the option of using search phrases
like "my friends who live in New York," he pointed
out. Search results remain personalized and
unique -- users can see only things that have
been shared with them.
The updates are due to roll out this week in U.S.
English. They'll be available via the Facebook
website and its iPhone app.
Long Time Coming
"It has taken a long time," Internet marketing
expert Brian Carter told TechNewsWorld.
The changes are necessary: "Have you ever
missed a post and gone back and the newsfeed is
so personalized that it doesn't even show it
anymore? Or you clicked on a link and loved it but
lost the link?" he asked.
"So much of Facebook is about discovering and
sharing great content," Carter said. "This will make
finding that content again much easier, not to
mention looking back at previous conversations."
It's not yet clear whether the search functionality
will apply only to post content or to comments as
well, but either way, it's "a much-needed tool,"
Carter said. "It's even more important for mobile,
because the mobile experience is a bit slower and
more limited."
'A Usability Problem'
The move is "long overdue," said Jim Tobin,
president of Ignite Social Media .
"Graph Search never really reached its potential,
and I can recall many times when I wanted to
show someone a post I'd seen earlier and couldn't
easily find it," he told TechNewsWorld. "When you
have billions of pieces of content, not being able to
find them is a usability problem."
The new feature "improves the network's utility and
will encourage people to spend more time with it,"
agreed Paul Gillin, B2B social media strategist.
A Threat to Yelp?
"I'm struck by the timing, since Twitter announced
just three weeks ago that the entire Twitter history
would now be searchable, not just the previous
two or three weeks, as had been the case in the
past," Gillin told TechNewsWorld. "I wonder what
new technology innovation has suddenly enabled
this functionality?"
The mobile capability will be welcome because
"people often want to search for friends'
recommendations when they're looking for a
nearby restaurant or business," he noted.
"Previously, that was all but impossible on
Facebook," Gillin said. "If I were Yelp or
TripAdvisor, I'd be nervous, because a lot of the
value they've provided has been aggregating
opinions over time. Facebook isn't negating their
value, of course, but it's giving users a valuable
new resource to get recommendations when they
need them."
'Most Content Is Inane'
It's surprising that Facebook waited so long to
make its content searchable, particularly given that
"Google has been indexing LinkedIn's content
forever," said marketing and social media expert
Lon Safko.
"If you write a blog on LinkedIn, Google will index
it usually within 30 minutes," he told
TechNewsWorld. "Not so for Facebook."
Then again, "most of the content on Facebook is
inane -- there really hasn't been a dire need to
find that other funny cat video," Safko added.
"I guess the good thing is that at least Facebook is
still listening to users," he said. "After Facebook
went public, the only changes we've seen [have
been] ways for them to charge us for services we
used to have for free. It's nice to see some
enhancements made solely for the users."
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