A new way to search on Facebook
Facebook has just recently altered the algorithms behind their search bar in order to incorporate a much wider range of topics, while also organizing search by time and relevance to the world now. People can now search for any sort of breaking news that may be happening with their friends or in the world around them. By pushing updates in the search bar, people now receive a tailored list of results of topics other than their list of friends. This new search engine now incorporates aspects of Twitter and Google’s search engines, broadening the scope of the search while refining the search in a much better manner. Given this change, I personally expect Facebook’s search engine to start to give other search engines a run for their money as long as it is implemented as expected rather than solely focusing on the “Friends” aspect of Facebook and turning more outward to the world as well.
The introduction of this new search engine revolves greatly around the PageRank concept that we have been discussing in class as the search now not only deals with the networks of friends but now also ideas and news, meaning that they’ve added an influx of both hubs and authorities. By doing so, they are catering towards a larger crowd, meaning they are increasing the authority value of the site itself. As their search algorithm changes, they slowly navigate away from the site’s original basis in friendly networking. While this may seem strange, it’s actually a wise business decision as people know who they’re searching for when they’re looking up their friends so there’s no need to focus as much on the rank of the friend authorities, but rather what’s going on with each of these friends.
Source: http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/22/technology/facebook-universal-search/index.html