Facebook's New Search Engine: What You Need To Know

CIO - Facebook rolled out changes to its search engine yesterday that let you query the service for status messages and other pieces of content that people post to the social network. The move reflects Facebook's desire to compete with Twitter, where people increasingly turn to share information about current events, such as the recent disputed election in Iran.

The changes also complement upcoming privacy changes to Facebook, which encourage users to share content with "everyone" on Facebook rather than their closed circle of friends - another tweak aimed at curtailing Twitter's influence.

Baking simple filters into the new search tool, Facebook gives you the choice to search for both information that "Friends" posted, in addition to content made public by people you don't know personally. With "everyone," you can search for links and status updates. With your "Friends," you can search across almost all content mediums, including videos and pictures. In addition, you can view searches on the public Web, powered by Microsoft Bing.

I tested the new search tool last night, querying the engine around topics of interest. From my slumping "Red Sox" to finding out about people's latest thoughts on "health care," my searches yielded some interesting results. I liked the fact that Facebook's new search tool returns rich content, posted by my friends, which would be lost in the noise of a search on the public Web or Twitter. (Facebook hopes you share that sentiment). The new search tool also seems to capitalize on Facebook's main advantage over Twitter: It's not a service limited to text-based status messages, and the search results now reflect that dynamic range of content.

How to use Facebook's New Search Tool

After you log in to Facebook, the search bar is in the same spot as it was before the changes - in the upper right hand corner. Once you type in a search term, and hit enter, Facebook brings you to a search results page that shows pages, applications, and Facebook "Friends" with content related to the term.

The power comes in your ability to filter the content. On the left side of the page is a list of ways in which you can organize the results. You can choose search results from people, pages, groups, apps, and events on Facebook where the term has been mentioned. Most powerfully, you can see what your Friends specifically have said around a certain topic (click on the aptly named "posts by friends").

The drop-down menu allows you to visualize different ways in which your Facebook Friends created content that's related to your search term, including wall posts, status messages, links, photos and videos. After you select the type of content you wish to see, you must click on the "filter the results" button.