Real-time Web search could be Facebook's future

After Facebook announced that it would be acquiring social sharing service Friendfeed, Facebook engineering manager Akhil Wable announced that Facebook was in the midst of improving its in-site Search features as well.

Users can enter the term they want to find in the search field, then results can be filtered to include posts by friends, fan groups, or pages viewable to all users, as well as events, applications, and the Web as a whole.

"I used Facebook Search to get the latest about our recent acquisition of FriendFeed, an innovative service for sharing online," Wable wrote. "When I enter 'FriendFeed' in the 'Search' field in the upper-right hand corner of any page on Facebook, I get the most recent status updates, reactions and news from my friends who work in technology and people who have chosen to make their content available to everyone. I also can find the official FriendFeed Page on Facebook and user groups related to FriendFeed."

Because Friendfeed's executive staff is comprised of former Google employees, and it concentrates on keeping track of real-time Web updates, some take yesterday's announcements as a clear sign that Facebook is moving toward becoming a search site.

Blogger Robert Scoble said, "This is Facebook firing a shot at Google...Facebook knows the real money in real time is in search. FriendFeed has real time search. Google does not (although it's bootstrapping there very fast, some of my FriendFeed items are showing up in Google within seconds now)...Google has Wave coming, along with some other things this fall and that forced a shotgun marriage between FriendFeed and Facebook."