The new Facebook search
The Facebook blog announced an improved search on Facebook yesterday. Last month, Facebook began testing new versions of Search with a small group of people on Facebook. Based on the success of those tests, they rolled out a new version of Search to everyone on the site yesterday.
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, such as supermac18 as well as relevant Facebook Pages, such as Sarah Palin's recent annoucement, 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 parties your friends are going to, people who are following So you think you can dance, Teen Award updates, Palin's hairdresser or the health plan to see what people think about it. You also can search for a company or product to learn what people are saying about that brand.
Overall, after some negative coverage of Facebook, the divorce through Facebook, and the study that found Facebook increases jealousy, this is good (and positive) news for Facebook. I tried out the search feature myself and it was pretty useful. I finally found the picture a friend had posted that I was looking for and was unable to find, and a bunch of other posts. I will post another piece on how to best use the new search soon.
Tech Policy and Happenings: You may be interested in the reasons behind a recent Twitter outage, how we can track criminal activity on the Web (George Sodini video), Teens and Twitter, the use of social networking in the military, American Innovation in Crisis , Why Government keeps getting Technology Wrong , Yahoo and Microsoft vs. Google , a recent look at consumer satisfaction with federal websites, Cybersecurity: an interview with Dan Risacher at DOD - Part 1 and Part 2, and Cloud Computing with Pete Tseronis
Lighter Side of Tech: For some more lighter tech stories, check out the abs and butt discussion between Andy Roddick and Serena, Palin's absence from Twitter, her Facebook statement, and how her hairdresser is speaking up for Palin, the Twitter prediction for "So you think you can dance", adorable online cat stories, the $50,000 Tweet, modern day hero:the libertarian Facebook pig, which still on the lam., interviews with Twilight stars at Com Con, the Top Ten Fight Scenes and Top Free Movies on on YouTube, Bill Clinton's video with JFK and his status updates on Facebook, best of Hulu, and the top 10 creepiest vintage ads.
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