Facebook Inc. this week added real-time search capabilities to its social network, another move aimed at solidifying its lead over rivals like MySpace Inc. and Twitter Inc.
Akhil Wable, an engineering manager at Facebook, wrote in a blog post this week that the new technology is being rolled out to the network after a month of testing by a small group of users.
“You now will be able to search the last 30 days of your News Feed for status updates, photos, links, videos and notes being shared by your friends and the Facebook Pages of which you’re a fan,” said Wable. “If people have chosen to make their content available to everyone, you also will be able to search for their status updates, links and notes, regardless of whether or not you are friends. Search results will continue to include people’s profiles, as well as relevant Facebook Pages, groups and applications.”
The news of the search addition to the site came just hours after Facebook announced that it had agreed to buy real-time feed aggregator FriendFeed Inc. While it wasn’t disclosed how much money Facebook paid for the 12-employee company, analysts speculate that the acquisition is part of a Facebook move to become a social networking hub.
With real-time search capabilities added to the mix, Facebook is in even an even better position to act as a hub for its users, said Dan Olds, an analyst with The Gabriel Consulting Group. If Facebook users can see and search all of their social networking feeds – posts, photos, tweets, etc. – from their own page, they will likely spend more time on the site, he added.
