CHINA Facebook has rolled out a vastly improved search engine that returns real- time results and the status updates of members who have chosen to make their information public, putting the site into more direct competition with Twitter.
By positioning itself as a real-time search engine where anyone can search what Facebook users are saying, the social networking site could steal market share and potential advertising dollars from Twitter.
The announcement came hours after Facebook announced it would acquire FriendFeed, a social aggregation service with features similar to Twitter, for a reported $50m in cash and stock.
Twitter has proven its value largely through its search function. By searching for keywords such as ‘Iran’ or ‘election’ during the recent political unrest in Iran, anyone on the web could see what users around the world were saying about the subject.
Yet with 250m active members, Facebook is the vastly larger site.
Until now, however, Facebook’s search function had been pilloried as inadequate. Results did not include status updates, and finding even basic features like applications or the company pages was tedious. Last week, Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer, told the Financial Times: “Our search is not always wonderful yet. We know we need to improve it.”
Last year, Facebook attempted to buy Twitter for $500m, but had its offer rebuffed.
Since then, it has made incremental changes that have emulated the service. “They would love to have bought Twitter, but that didn’t happen,” said Ray Valdes, an analyst with Gartner. “So they’ve been adding features to counter it.”
The upgrade also aids Facebook’s ambition of making the site more public.
“Facebook needs to be more of a public site to stay relevant when it comes to Google and Twitter,” said Jeremiah Owyang, an analyst with Forrester Research. “The more content that is available publicly, the better off Facebook is.”
But as Facebook becomes more public, it will test its users’ appetite for exposure on the web. It has begun asking users to re-evaluate their privacy settings, and is encouraging them to make information publicly available. Privacy advocates have expressed concern that some users might not understand their information is being made public.
Twitter this year played a crucial role in several public events, such as the Iranian elections, and has been widely adopted by businesses.
But with the FriendFeed acquisition and its new search feature, Mr Valdes said Facebook had retaken the spotlight. “Twitter had the momentum for a little bit there,” he said. “But Facebook is taking that back and becoming a one-stop social site.”
