Yesterday, I opened up my Facebook to find that I was part of the latest new feature roll-out. My Facebook is now sporting a new top header, and a BIG search box. It's so big and inviting, so I immediately took it for a spin. There's some cool (and some slightly creepy) things you can do with it.
The Old Header:
The New Header:
Suggested Searches
Facebook search offers you many more suggestions now, and the interface is big and bold and easy to see. The suggestions actually make a lot of sense, and the web search is powered by Bing.
Visual Photo Layout
Pinterest style layouts are really hot right now, and the Facebook photo search makes great use of it. I can see photos of whatever I see in a mosiac layout, which makes the content read more like a story.
How Creepy Can It Get?
Ok so with Facebook, it's no secret that there is a TON of data that can be searched. For better or worse all Facebookers have voluntarily shared information about themselves, including, in many cases, relationship status. And that means you can do this... (Faces are not blurred on actual Facebook, I just thought it was the right thing to do before blogging it to thousands of people!)
I'm trying to think of a positive, unstalkery use-case for this type of search. I suppose setting up my single male MarketMeSuite co-workers on blind dates just got a whole lot easier...
When Will You See It?
You may not see it yet. As with many Facebook features, they get rolled out to only a percentage of users first, before going user-wide, so stay tuned over the next days and weeks. How do you plan to use this new search?