Yesterday’s article about Facebook’s new search feature was as much a discussion of its strategic direction as it was the new feature. The article spent a lot of time explaining the travails around Facebook’s attempt to be more like Twitter and how its next update will eschew that in favor of the features that existed before it decided that it wanted to out-tweet Twitter.

What I can’t figure out is why Facebook even wanted to be like Twitter. Facebook is about interacting with friends, Twitter is about broadcasting updates to followers, many of whom you don’t even know (that is if you are lucky enough to have followers). Facebook is about producing content that adds value to existing friendships and that people typically respond to, Twitter is about sending snippets out to (with some exceptions) small groups of people with nary a response.

Twitter’s strength as a broadcast medium has been proven given the turmoil in Iran, it is the only way that we are able to hear and see what is happening on the streets of Tehran. But, that only underscores the points that we have been making all along: it is not a channel designed to stimulate engagement among a network of friends or colleagues but a powerful one-to-many communications channel.

So, back to the Facebook search part. It is a great concept, but as with most things, success will depend on how it is implemented. Given that WOM referrals and advice are perceived as more credible than any other sort of promotional media, it certainly makes strategic sense. But, people on Facebook will be need to be incented to make their profiles public (which is clearly different from how Facebook exists today) so we will have to see.

Facebook was inundated with complaints when it adopted more Twitter-like features. Its latest news of a pending redesign seems to suggest that it listened. But it seems sort of odd, don’t you think, that the social network that taught us the power and pleasure of connecting with friends needed to be reminded of that which made it a social force. Goes to show you what happens when your strategy is guided entirely by what “the competition” is doing. In the case of Facebook search, that same sentiment applies.