Facebook upgrades its search options and crossed 400 million user base

On its sixth birthday, Facebook launched a host of new features including an upgraded search engine. The website also crossed 400 million user mark. The new search feature has “auto-complete” option. When you type in names, it automatically completes the name. The Facebook search also indexes content related to your friend and your friend’s friend. There is also a new photo-uploading system that can be accessed from the front page making the loading process faster and easier. There is also a games application dashboard which replaces older game notifications. Venture Beat reports:

You’ll also have the option of seeing more content like status updates and posts through search, as long as it’s supposed to be visible to you through privacy settings. With the new privacy settings and more public content, search should figure increasingly prominently in the user experience, as it will be able to surface more and more content over time.

Facebook is currently one of the most popular social networking sites in the world with an estimated earning of $300 million. The website started its journey on February 4, 2004. A Harvard University student named Mark Zuckerberg, along with his college roommates and fellow computer science students- Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes- started the site. Initially, membership to the website was limited to Harvard students but gradually it was expanded to other colleges in the Boston area, followed by Ivy League universities and Stanford University. It later opened up to anyone aged 13 and over.