Facebook Improves Search, Focuses On Speed

By Chelsi Nakano (@chelkano) Mar 19, 2010

Earlier this week Facebook rolled out a mini new feature. The improved search functionality saves users a bit of time by helping them get to where they’re going faster.

To see it, just type something in the Facebook search field. You’ll immediately see a drop down box below the query:

Facebook fans with an eye for detail will find this feature familiar, but unlike the previous version—which only displayed friends—the drop-down includes people, events, groups and Pages. Currently, Facebook is limiting the results to items that are globally available, items users are directly connected with, or items users are one degree of separation from (friends of friends).

"You'll see a wider variety of relevant results and be able to discover new connections you might want to make on Facebook right as you're entering your search," wrote Wayne Kao, a Facebook engineer, in an official blog post.

Why do we care? Well, Facebook has been up to a lot of stuff lately. The platform's most recent activity has been in the analytics department, as they now send weekly data reports to the admins of Pages. Moreover, the popular social network surpassed Google in hits this week.

Search has remained a technical challenge to Facebook, but it looks like they're making their first attempt at correcting that. Add that to a built-in analytics option, numbers that exceed those of Google, the possibility of an entirely revamped e-mail strategy, and the most popular social network in the world and, well, you've got something worth keeping track of.