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Facebook Tests Out 'Highlight' Feature

By Andy Sim - on 11 May 2012, 12:12pm

Facebook Tests Out 'Highlight' Feature

Image credit: Stuff.co.nz

Would you pay cold hard cash to accentuate your social media postings? Facebook thinks you do. The social networking giant is currently tinkering with the a new feature called Highlight which enables subscribers to promote their online posts at different price points, and including free options as well. The new feature is said to increase the visibility of status updates on friends' news feeds.

The Highlight selection was stumbled upon by a New Zealander user in Whangaeri who believed the feature to be a scam at the onset.  Further checks with Facebook, however, confirmed that it wasn't a hoax. Mia Garlick, a Facebook spokeswoman, confirmed that Facebook is in the midst of testing new features such as Highlight across the site to gauge user interest. Fans of Tumblr would undoubtedly associate Facebook's trial feature to Tumblr's latest 'highlight post' offering. At one US dollar per pop, Tumblr users can slap a label next to their highlighted post to make it more prominent on the blogging platform.   

Is Facebook taking a leaf out of Tumblr's books? Anyway, Facebook is no stranger to site monetization, but it is the first time the social media platform is attempting to profit from their user base in such a direct manner. It's also clear that Facebook is trying to augment the company's valuation prior to the IPO scheduled on May the 18th. A more recent update from news site Neowin states the Facebook "doesn't do anything once you highlight a post as yet". And that the Highlight feature requires payment in some instances, but not the next.

Source: StuffNeowin, and The Next Web

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