Facebook real-time
content search
Facebook is testing new search features on a small segment of its community. "Those of you in the test group will be able to find content from the people, organizations and public figures that matter to you as soon as they share it on Facebook," writes Kari Lee on the Facebook Blog, which reported the news.
Those included in the test will be able to search their News Feeds for the most current status updates, photos, links, videos and notes being shared by friends and Facebook Pages of which they are fans — putting fresher emphasis on sifting and organizing relevant real-time content.
To illustrate how the feature will work, Lee demonstrated what appears upon entering the term "Iran" in the search field on her Facebook page.
I will see up-to-the-minute results from my friends and the Facebook Pages of which I'm a fan, not to mention people who have chosen to make their profile and content available to everyone. I'm able to discover what blogs and news sources my friends are following, what my friends are saying about President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and opposition candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi, and how people in general are reacting to the election results.
A snapshot of the results, courtesy of Facebook, appears at left.
The company's emphasis on improving its real-time search features speaks to growing interest among search engines to compete with Twitter for up-to-the-moment news and data. Internet Explorer 8 launched with real-time social search features, the new Google Wave offering integrates components of Twitter and other platforms into its search results, and one independent engine, Topsy, determines the value of real-time discussions based on how often they're repeated — or, in Twitter terminology, "retweeted." Then there are add-ons to incorporate real-time Twitter search results into search engines like Bing.
Lee's illustrative focus on Iran also suggests Facebook is keen on getting involved in ongoing discussion over the country's recent elections, All Facebook suggests. On Monday, State Department official Jared Cohen emailed a Twitter co-founder to delay scheduled maintenance so Iranians could continue informing the world outside about growing contention in Tehran.
The Iranian government has blocked Twitter and other social networks following the elections, but a number of Iranian Twitterers have managed to circumvent the system via proxy sites — which mask computer "addresses" with international IPs — and through other means.
Twitter's decision to honor the request has made the microblogging site a darling amidst rising political tensions.
