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Facebook ‘Tests’ Post Search Feature It Promised Almost a Year Ago

The slowest rollout in the history of social media continues today, as Facebook is reportedly letting some mobile users search for old posts via keyword. According to a statement provided to Bloomberg...
Facebook ‘Tests’ Post Search Feature It Promised Almost a Year Ago
Written by Josh Wolford
  • The slowest rollout in the history of social media continues today, as Facebook is reportedly letting some mobile users search for old posts via keyword.

    According to a statement provided to Bloomberg, Facebook says this is “an improvement to search on mobile.”

    It’s also an improvement that Facebook promised months and months ago.

    In January of 2013, Facebook unveiled Graph Search on desktop. The product, which allows users to search for stuff like “photos of Jack Smith” and “place in San Francisco that Jack Smith likes”, was put on a slow rollout schedule – like many other Facebook products before it.

    Slow turned out to be a bit of an understatement, as Facebook didn’t finish its rollout of Graph Search to US users until August of that year. And that was just desktop Graph Search. Mobile Graph Search was said to be “coming soon.”

    Flash forward to September of 2013, a month and a half after Graph Search hit all US users. At the time, Graph Search was limited to certain types of searches – things people “liked,” photos, and other basic profile information including location, work info, etc. Facebook promised back when Graph Search was first unveiled that post search would come, eventually (the ability to search past status updates, check-ins, photo captions, etc). And on September 30th, 2013, Facebook said that was now an option.

    “Starting today, Graph Search will include posts and status updates. Now you will be able to search for status updates, photo captions, check-ins and comments to find things shared with you,” said Facebook.

    Of course, there was also this part:

    “This is rolling out slowly to a small group of people who currently have Graph Search…”

    Once again, slow was an understatement.

    I took that screencap today.

    So, it’s interesting that Facebook is currently “testing” this post search, on mobile, when Graph Search isn’t even available on mobile yet.

    Well, save a select few.

    Mark Zuckerberg last mentioned Graph Search for mobile this past January, when he said it would be “coming soon.”

    Image via Facebook

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