Facebook has announced changes to the way users search to help the site move further into territory currently held by Google and Twitter. The social networking site announced yesterday it had bought startup FriendFeed and unveiled new features for finding what friends and strangers have posted online.
Users will be able to search within their friend's profiles for comments they have made within the last 30 days, such as typing "weekend" to find out what existing contacts have planned.
For the first time, they will also be able to find what any users with public profiles are saying about particular topics or news events.
Further changes to how to search and share content are made likely by the acquisition of FriendFeed.
The company are rumoured to have paid $50m for the Silicon Valley firm which has just 12 employees and comparatively few users.
But the staff are mostly ex-Google web engineers and Facebook wanted their talent and expertise.