Facebook temporarily launched Microsoft Live Search integration with its site before removing it a short time later. It’s unclear why the feature has been removed, but the post announcing it on the Facebook Blog was removed as well, so I’m guessing it wasn’t quite ready for primetime, and they goofed.
Microsoft even posted about it on the official Live Search blog (complete with a screenshot):
Today we’re excited for our friends at Facebook. Now Facebook users in the U.S. have the option to “Search Facebook” or “Search the Web.” In addition, adCenter is delivering search ads alongside those results. For me that means getting great search results while receiving highly relevant ads that are personalized by either my Facebook profile or search query. Find out more about the Facebook team’s first implementation of Live Search in their blog.
VentureBeat (who has different screenshots) notes that you can search the web or search Facebook from Facebook’s toolbar when the feature is activated. If nothing else, we were offered a glimpse of what is surely coming soon, and the overall response from those who were lucky enough to view it seems to be positive. “I have a feeling that Facebook’s revenue just got a serious boost from this new search integration,” says Nick O’Neill at All Facebook. “I think the tool will need some refining over the coming days but this is a huge step forward for Facebook.”
The news of the Live Search Facebook integration was not unexpected. The deal was announced back in July, but they didn’t give out any information about when it was actually going to go down. With it being removed today, it’s still hard to say exactly when, but I’d have to guess that it’s very soon (espcially now that everyone’s talking about it). I would imagine they’ll get it back up as soon as they correct the problem(s) that got it removed in the first place.
Update: A PR rep has informed me that the feature and blog post are now up and running.
