“Today, we’re updating Facebook Search so that in addition to friends and family, you can find out what the world is saying about topics that matter to you”, Stock said. “Friends” means your Facebook friends can see what you post and search for your posts.
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According to Facebook, it has indexed more than 2 trillion posts by its users which all become searchable after the update. Since Facebook posts are personal and often react to events or trends, the new search capability could pose a threat to products like Google Trends. It essentially takes the best news from around the world and makes it simple to find-and it also keeps you away from Google and other newsy apps, ensuring you spend that much more time in Facebook’s ecosystem. “We even have it that if you are sharing publicly and you’ve decided you don’t want to do that, with a single button you can go back and change all of your previous posts to be friends only”.
The whole point is to steal people away from Twitter, which just enabled the “moments” feature to make it easier to see real-time reactions to news.
Although not principally known as a search engine, Stocky said Facebook receives more than 1.5 billion search requests every day.
The updates are rolling out starting today for US English users on iPhone, Android and the web.
The move will let Facebook track more accurately what people are talking about, so that its search tools can offer information about what’s going on. With this, you’ll be able to quickly and easily find out what others are saying about a certain topic or event. The type-ahead drop-down will show suggested results that complete your search string, as well as matching people or things.
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Users can click on the the tiny padlock icon at the top right of their profile to view their settings, where the “Who Can See My Stuff” option will show them who can see the posts that they’re now publishing.
