Facbook Logo (Photo : Reuters/Dado Ruvic)
Facebook had already launched a feature that added searchable individual posts of Friends and Pages such as brands with Likes. However, it has now challenged rivals Twitter and Google to control real-time news information through a universal search that includes over 2 trillion public posts made by all users and Pages. This allows people to search for anything under the sun, from pizza to houses, their favorite music and TV shows, and follow online reactions to the latest trending news stories. However, it also means that potentially embarrassing house party and costume fail photos, and knee-jerk reaction posts about exes will be visible to all of the social network's United States English users.
Individual search results will be put into different top-down categories. It will include posts by reliable news sources, Facebook Friends, lists of the top quotes or links about the subject, and strangers (in that order).
If Facebook users post on their timeline without setting the default to "Friends only," universal search will make the photos and posts visible to the world. However, users can avoid that situation by clicking on the lock located on the top menu, on the right side of the search bar. They must select Settings and Tools and then limit past posts shared with Friends of Friends or Public, in order to limit all old posts to Friends, according to Macworld.
Facebook's updated Search feature resembles Twitter's. Like the tweet-based company it unlocks the news and comments that center around headline news and live events.
Facebook's move could cause a few key effects. It could make the social network giant the go-to news source for its users, and encouraging them to make more public posts that are now more visible to the online community.
In addition, Google's colossal ad revenue is solid proof that search queries show users' intent. That can in turn be used to sell money-making keyword ads in sponsored search results, according to Tech Crunch.
Facebook processes around 1.5 billion searches per day. In the future the company will likely focus on the monetization of those queries.
