There's a very common misunderstanding among normal users that websites can't really look different for different users. Facebook has corrected that a bit, users now know that features might be rolled out in stages, but they still cling to the misunderstanding that if someone has a feature, they will get it eventually.

And hence this article: Zuckerberg has extra features, therefore everyone will get these extra features. It's pure speculation. A more likely explanation is that he has a special version with a lot more controls that are relevant to him.

Just as likely, he reviews a lot of prototype interfaces, most of which never see the light of day.

True, but... If there are thousands of prototype interfaces in review why is Zuck using this one? This is more of a fun "What if?" then anything else.

What if Facebook jumped into search in a big way?

What if people used Facebook Search while they are on Facebook instead of jumping over to Google?

What if every website could use a Facebook Search plugin?

Facebook knows if they want to beat The Street, now that they are going public, they need to crank up the revenue machine. They want to make more money to make better products. Banners are not doing that, but search and an advertising network that would compete with Google in a big way would help them turn their 850 million users into a revenue powerhouse.

What if?

My logic was that, if Zuck is testing it, then perhaps it's a serious competitor to go live.

It's all speculation, but I would say the search box getting larger (so as to look like Quora) does mean something, as in they might be pushing for search, which would be interesting.

yeah, the Quora idea is quite possible. Where search drives the interactions. As I wrote, search is something that’s totally under-realized on the Facebook platform. There is no way to search and filter content.

Maybe they'll roll out a HUD like the next version of Ubuntu?

No, this could change how you use Facebook. A doodle doesn't do that.

That is assuming we use facebook. I don't use facebook.

That said, this is somewhat interesting to me for 2 closely related reasons:

1) I like to know how the "big boys" think and it's entertaining to see the moves they make competitively.

2) Since the "big boys" are so influential, the moves they make could in turn affect my business decisions in the near future.

Wow, you don't use facebook. Good for you, But 500 million other people in the world do. That makes it a fairly big deal, love it or loath it. And as you so rightly just pointed out, this may in turn affect the way everyone else does business.

Did the way you use Facebook change significantly last time they changed the layout of the news feed?

Yep. I'm commenting on and liking all sorts of things I'd never have seen before the mini-feed in the top-right corner was introduced.

It did for a lot of people, indeed... Differences in click-through are quite measurable for us (a Facebook app provider).

The Ticker, specifically, proved to be a huge surprise, with click-rates higher than the regular click-rate of a Facebook Ad!

For me it didn't change my behavior, but that's not the point. I think the fact that Facebook may emphasize the search functionality more does mean something. As you know there's this thing called affordance.

I agree.

This comment is here because the hacker news comment system is a great example of bad design.