Facebook mimics Twitter again; starts testing Trending Topics
No, it’s not just you. Facebook indeed is becoming more Twitter-like with every passing day. After having introduced verified accounts and hashtags,
No, it’s not just you. Facebook indeed is becoming more Twitter-like with every passing day. After having introduced verified accounts and hashtags, Facebook is toying with making a whole new Trending Topics section available on the service.
According to AllThingsD, Facebook is working towards letting people know what the chatter across the social network currently is. Trending Topics is all set to be released to a limited number of users in the US today. Oddly, the feature seems to be available for the mobile website only.
Rolling out in US now
Facebook seems to have shifted its focus over a period of time from making you look beyond just your circle of family and friends to talking about and discovering newer things going on in the world. Facebook’s USP had always remained being able to connect with your loved ones which slowly started to change over a period of time when the service introduced the Follow feature as well as hashtags. Twitter, on the other hand, has always been about discovery, a domain that Facebook now wants a piece of.
Trending Topics will be available on the mobile website of Facebook and users will see a banner flagging a particular topic. Once they click on it, they’ll be able to first check out what their friends are talking about on that particular topic and then comments and posts from others. Justin Osofsky, a Facebook executive who oversees platform partnerships defends Facebook’s moves and says that the site is not moving away from its original mission of connecting users with people they already know. He says that this new initiative will help Facebook “unlock and surface the conversation about shared interests that’s already happening.”
More from News AnalysisIntrigued by all things social, Nishtha will invariably tweet about you. When not tweeting or writing about the next viral video, you will hear her proclaiming her love to Metallica, James Hetfield, Opeth, Akerfeldt and all bands that go 'growl'. She also obsesses about ACP Pradyuman and South Park and you will always find her moving around with a book. Her focus is on all the happening stuff in the tech domain, and she won't hesitate to take a shot at some of the oddball devices that make their way to our labs.
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