Facebook had over a billion people coming to its site every month. They choose different devices to browse Facebook to see what’s going on in their Friend’s life
Celebs and Brands are there too because they want these billion people to know what’s up in their lives (Products & Announcements). And sometimes they even pay for it.
Which is how Facebook makes money. By putting their posts in front of people who would be interested.
Facebook wants those people (you, me & our mutual friends) to share more content so that their friends can say more on the site. And it is giving the people more ways to do that.
Facebook has been testing a lot of things to keep the engagement going on because this will mean $ for them.
Here is a list of all the things Facebook has been testing lately.
Facebook is making it easy for people who break up
Facebook has been testing this feature from last few weeks, It lets a user easily untag their ‘EX’ from posts, turn off notifications related to them and hide them from appearing in their newsfeed.
Facebook says it makes it easy to handle the pain of a recent breakup. Facebook knows that people might turn away from its site for a while to avoid seeing their ‘EX’s’ new interests.
While these features of untagging and turning off then notifications was already available in the Facebook Privacy settings, this will happen automatically for the particular person, i.e, user’s ‘EX’.
You can read our views on this feature where we tell you better ways to deal with such Breakups. Go read here.
Facebook is Testing Automatic Translation
As we said, Facebook has over One Billion people using it. Facebook does not want Language to come in the way of those Billion people, and that is why they are testing this feature where they offer automatic translation of posts.
Users can turn their posts from ‘Any Language’ to ‘Any Language’
The images shared by a user on Social Times site shows that he got the feature that Translate his Posts from Portuguese to English and also gives the option to opt out.
Facebook is Testing Its Own Medium-Like Content Platform
Facebook wants to be like everything that starts growing rapidly. Medium is a hot new Publishing platform for writers who love to write. And there is a serious amount of good writing available on Medium.
Facebook, being the site with millions of Publishers already sharing their blog links on the website, wants to offer similar features by allowing them to write Formatting enabled Rich text that is very similar to what Medium is offering.
Read our post about comparing Medium and Facebook Notes.
Facebook is testing a way to search your camera roll to find photos of your friends
Facebook is hungry for your photos because it knows your friends love browsing them on Facebook (even when if they are not liking it).
Facebook has invested heavily in acquiring startups that worked on Face Recognition software. You may have seen it recognizing your current photos on Facebook and suggesting to tag your friends in them (99% accurately).
It is now testing to peek into User’s Camera Roll and find the photos they have clicked, of their friends and asks them to share it with the friends by uploading it on Facebook.
Crazy, yes it is. But this is going to increase in engagement. People in different parts of the world have been seeing this feature.
Facebook is Testing Video Profiles
Because Profile pictures are boring, we want to see people doing stuff inside that tiny square box on everyone’s profile page. Bring it on Facebook.
Facebook Is Testing Disappearing Messages in France
Couldn’t buy Snapchat (even after offering $3 Billion in 2013) but that does not mean Facebook can’t make the messages disappear, that’s the only deal with Snapchat, isn’t it?
Several studies have shown that teenagers are leaving Facebook for Snapchat and similar apps. Facebook wants them back badly, and maybe it wants to retain the existing ones by offering a similar feature.
Actually, there is no hard in having a feature like this. We may find it useful someday.
Facebook Testing ‘Buy Tickets’ Button for Event Pages
Facebook doesn’t want their users to go outside of their website. And that’s why it wants them to Buy the Tickets for Events directly from Pages.
It adds a ‘Call-to-Action’ button on the page that lets users buy the Tickets. The interesting part is that Facebook will not take any cut from the sales of the Tickets. as reported by BuzzFeed News
This test is a sign that Facebook is also thinking of trying their hands in the eCommerce as well. Let’s see when they are going to make this available to every Page Admin so that they can sell stuff.
Facebook is testing a feature that allows users to search for specific posts on profiles
This will prove to be a blessing in disguise for all the stalkers out there.
You see, there is a thing about Facebook. No one bothers about what you did last year because it has gone deep down the newsfeed.
While Facebook keeps bringing them back, it thought why not let users do it manually, and then it put a search bar on the profile pages of everyone.
So, anyone can to go any of their friend’s profile page and search for posts. This makes stalking so much easy
Facebook is testing live streaming videos, like Periscope
It seems Startups like Periscope become popular just to let Facebook know how big a small idea can be. I mean, after Periscope becomes popular, all Facebook did was Switch on this feature on their own website.
It started testing this feature by offering only verified Accounts to broadcast videos to their friends and followers, now it is going to be available for everyone.
So that you can live stream an epic moment of your life to all your Facebook friends. Because, well, Photos aren’t enough.
Facebook is testing more offline features for Android users
Okay, as of now, you can post something on Facebook even when you are offline, it goes live when your phone detects an Internet connection.
Facebook is bringing this functionality to the next level with enabling more things to do when a user is offline. Users will be able to make a comment on their Friends’ post, it will be posted automatically when there is Internet.
It will also load fresh content in the background while you browse the already loaded stories and put a ‘new stories’ button on the top for you to check.
Facebook wants people from Developing countries, where Internet connection is not fast and stable, to have a seamless experience of Facebook. This way, they won’t be annoyed and will keep browsing Facebook to the infinity and beyond.
Facebook is testing real-time comments feature
We see a lot of discussions going on around any topic on Facebook. There are thousands of comments on posts of popular people. Even normal users manage to get something viral and get insane amount of comments.
Facebook knows how important comments are, and it wants to make them real time. Meaning, when someone is typing a comment, you will be actually able to see it. Just like you do in Facebook Messenger.
Facebook really wants you to go deeper when you are commenting on a post of your friend or favourite celeb.
Facebook is testing a nearby places Recommendations like Yelp
A large part of Facebook audience check-in to places, loves to explore new restaurants and Spas, Arts etc.
Facebook has quietly launched a service called Professional Services. It, as the name suggests, will help users find businesses around them.
Users can search for thing like Gyms, Dentists, Spa, Salon, Pizza, type a city name and hit enter.
Facebook will list the things you can choose and go to. It also shows ratings and reviews done by people making it easy for you to pick a business to visit.
The data comes from the database of Facebook, which has Business pages that have registered their physical address on their pages, followed by people who left a review of their business.
Facebook has everything a good recommendation engine requires, hence they created this service. This is seriously going to put a few companies out of business. Yelp & Foursquare are the ones that come to my mind.
Facebook is testing new layout for Videos
At the start of the year 2015, Facebook mentioned that they get over 3 Billion video views per day. And at the end of the year, it gets over 8 Billion video views.
This makes it clear that it wants to be big at Videos, perhaps, it wants to compete with YouTube. Because Video is the thing where Business is interested in putting their ads.
Facebook is preparing its Billion users for videos by putting more videos in front and making users watch more videos.
It is now testing a new layout for videos where the videos appear in a lightbox, that will continuously play videos one after another.
Sadly, in this desperate attempt to be like YouTube, Facebook is allowing videos on their platform that are stolen from its competitor YouTube. You can read more about this in detail here.
