Facebook has just announced they are rolling out Facebook site-wide search to all Facebook users.’
However, as their press release states, it may take a few days to roll out to all Facebook users:
We’re rolling these changes out over the course of the next few days, so you may not see the new results just yet.
On June 16th, Facebook rolled out an experimental search to only a select number of users (read here). And apparently their test has gone pretty good because of the announcement today that search is rolling out to all users!
Facebook explains how to use their search function:
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. 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 release of Facebook search is obviously in response to Twitter’s real time search function that is taking to world by storm!
But again, since Twitter itself does not provide real time data streaming – meaning you can’t comment on Twitter updates direct on the tweets themselves – Facebook search might just gain an advantage quickly over Twitter.
I’m anxious to see if Facebook will provide trending searches – A Facebook Trends!
Here’s the full text of the press release, and you can also read it here:
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. 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.
To search for a particular term, just enter your query in the search box in the upper-right corner of any page. Once you’re taken to the search results, use the filters on the left-hand side of the page to view only posts by friends or posts by everyone. If you’re searching for a specific person, Page, group or application, you also can filter by those results.
By being able to search more types of content that are being shared on the site, you can easily find out your friends’ evening plans and recently frequented restaurants by searching for “dinner,” discover which of your friends are following Michael Schumacher’s comeback during the “Formula 1” season by searching for the race series, or query “economy” to see if people or your favorite news sources feel that the recession is turning around. You also can search for a company or product to learn what people are saying about that brand.
Earlier today, I used Facebook Search to get the latest about our recent acquisition of FriendFeed, an innovative service for sharing online. When I enter “FriendFeed” in the “Search” field in the upper-right hand corner of any page on Facebook, I get the most recent status updates, reactions and news from my friends who work in technology and people who have chosen to make their content available to everyone. I also can find the official FriendFeed Page on Facebook and user groups related to FriendFeed.
Remember that you can always control what content you’re sharing in other people’s search results by editing your privacy settings here.
We hope that these improvements to Search will help you connect with and find information about the people and things you care about more easily. We’re rolling these changes out over the course of the next few days, so you may not see the new results just yet.
Akhil, an engineering manager, is searching for what his friends are saying about the new Facebook Search.