It looks like Facebook isn’t going to miss the real-time search boat. Instead, the social network has begun a little experiment, and it seems that it’s started with Twitter’s ideas on the subject and added some interesting features from there.
A look at the screenshot below (the test search term was “Iran”) should give you a decent idea of what’s going on. One of Facebook’s better advances probably involves putting an emphasis on search results originating from friends’ profiles, as opposed to whatever information random individuals have made public.
Then, it’s impossible not to notice the varied nature of the real-time search results. Whereas a completely Twitter-like search engine might just return status updates, Facebook’s delving into status updates, photos, links, videos, and notes, among other things, which makes for a much more interesting experience.
Also, on the Facebook Blog, engineer Kari Lee promised, “In the coming weeks, as we learn more from the different test versions of Search, we’ll keep making improvements . . .”
So are you ready to get started searching? Well, unfortunately the experiment is limited to a small group of people at the moment, and there’s no word on when it might expand or become a standard feature. But since Twitter’s search engine is already out and Google’s working on something, too, you can bet that Facebook will try to make sure its offering launches in a timely fashion.
