Facebook recently presented its new search name, FYI Search.
With over 1.5 billion search queries every day, and more than 2 trillion posts indexed, Facebook had a very strong reason to develop all of that information into its own search engine.
In comparison to the already known search functions, the new search functions from Facebook should bring new features and make it easy to find content from the social network.
Some features of the new search function include:
A better autocomplete function: personalized recommendations will be automatically shown in the search box. These recommendations come in real-time from the topic entered so that the user can find the most popular and current stories to follow.
Searching through public posts for information, as well as posts from friends. Public posts or ones from friends will then be displayed in the results. Preference goes to relevant and recent posts.
Searching through open discussions, which is a new way to get involved in every discussion. You can easily get involved by clicking on a discussion in the results.
Apart from the fact that the question is asked a lot in the media regarding if Facebook's new search function is a serious competitor for Google, you can't forget that both search engines are working with very different sets of data. Although Google has tried for many years to personalize its results for its users, Facebook can perform much better in this respect with its user-generated content.
In contrast, there is simply much more information that one can find in Google than in Facebook. 2 different search engines, 2 different areas of expertise.
For someone who is looking for current information, or for input or discussions from other people, Facebook's FYI search can be quite helpful. On the other hand, if someone is looking for more research-orientated or scientific results, Google's search engine would be the better choice.
At the time of writing, the FYI search from Facebook is only available in the USA. If you are there, you should be able to try out the new search functions on the desktop and mobile versions of Facebook. Hopefully, Facebook will make this search function available in more countries soon.
TIP: pay attention to the privacy settings for all of your posts and be careful about the content that you do publicly share.
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