Facebook is currently testing a new Twitter like feature in a bid to drive conversations. The new feature, “What friends are talking about,” which is still in experimental stage is supposed to encourage conversations between friends more often.
The new feature will work by collecting all the recent posts updated by a user’s friend. These posts will then be placed in a separate area at the top of the user’s news feed allowing the user to view the no. of comments each post has received. Facebook’s new feature addition does resemble “Twitter’s own timeline” where tweets from contacts a Twitter user engages with get prominently featured.
Facebook has been running a number of programs/tests in order to bring in more informative content to its users. Running such tests is not at all uncommon for Facebook. The social giant has in recent times experimented with autoplaying video with sound and also with its news feed algorithm all with the aim of connecting people. Users shouldn’t be surprised be if their close Facebook contacts appear in the new feature more often than those contacts the users haven’t been in touch with for a long time.
As is the case with most experimental features, Facebook’s new feature has been rolled out only to a few Facebook users as of now.
