web 2.0 – Page 2 – Andy writes!

Facebook’s announcement on Tuesday of a new feature that lets users search for information that has been shared with them could be good news for college and university Facebook pages.

At the least, the new function should give us a reason to keep our Facebook sites updated with fresh content.

Called Graph Search, the new search feature was introduced Tuesday in limited preview, or beta. Facebook’s announcement of the tool notes: “If you have a Page on Facebook, Graph Search can make it easier for people to discover and learn more about your business.” PR Daily’s coverage of the news suggests that the more brands update their Facebook pages, the more likely their content will appear in a person’s Graph Search results.

“It appears Facebook is making a push to further encourage brands to invest in cultivating relationships with their fans online; the more popular the page, the more often it will show up in search,” writes PR Daily’s Michael Sebastian.

Perhaps most important — for all of us, not just brands — is that with this development, “Facebook finally has a search technology that works,” writes Adrian Covert in CNNMoney’s coverage of the announcement.

I haven’t had a chance to investigate Graph Search yet, but it sounds like it could help brands extend their reach within the Facebook universe. That is, if brands use the tool in the right way. Keeping content fresh and relevant on Facebook will be important. Those brands that ignore their Facebook content could find themselves ignored by users who Graph Search for information on their friends.

Today, two of important online resources for the higher ed marketing world merged. Set Odell’s HigherEdLive and mStoner‘s EDUniverse will become one unstoppable force for good.

“The merger brings together our industry’s best in rich media with the best of crowdsourced collaboration and content, all with the goal of building Higher Ed Live/EDUniverse into an even more useful platform for the higher education industry,” writes Odell in his announcement of the merger. Michael Stoner also wrote about this merger, promising that he and the mStoner group are “going to work very closely with them to ensure that Higher Ed Live becomes even more dynamic and inspiring — and that it becomes more relevant than ever.”

For now, the sites will continue to operate independently as the mStoner team and the Higher Ed Live team determine how to best bring these two sites together. But I’m sure we can expect some big things to happen — and soon — as a result of this new venture.

Congratulations to Seth, Michael and everyone else who was involved in making this happen.