The largest social networking site Facebook has always been proactive in releasing new features. Facebook has frequently released new features which range from small updates to complete layout change. In a similar move, Facebook recently released three new features which were aimed to improve the user experience. Two of these three features were seen as imitation of similar features from Facebook’s rival social network, Twitter. Let us have a look at these three features.
1. Photo Commenting
Facebook introduced the photo commenting feature on June 20, 2013. After this, you can reply to any status, photo or any other update using a photo. If you see a camera icon on the right of a comment box, then you can comment using a photo just by clicking that camera icon.
This feature was earlier believed by many to increase spam on Facebook. The concern was real, as anyone could comment with a random photo and it could also increase the page load time for Facebook. But contrary to earlier belief, the feature has not been used much.
2. Verified profiles and pages
On May 29, Facebook started verifying profiles and pages, a feature that is highly similar to the verified profiles feature of Twitter.
Let us have a look at the instructions in the verified profiles help pages of the two websites:
Facebook:
Facebook proactively verifies authentic Pages and profiles, but if you believe that you’re being impersonated you can always report a fake account.
Twitter:
Twitter proactively verifies accounts on an ongoing basis to make it easier for users to find who they’re looking for. We do not accept requests for verification from the general public.
As you can notice, Facebook has kept the terms quite similar to the Twitter’s terms.
3. Hashtags
On June 12 Facebook impersonated Twitter in yet another way. Facebook finally introduced #hashtags which are already used on many social networks like Twitter, Google+ etc. With Facebook aggressively expanding its features and implementing some of Twitter’s features on its platform, Twitter may be in for some tough competition. Hashtags help you in joining the world in a bigger conversation. You can click a #hashtag and an overlay window will open where you can see all the conversations happening with that hashtag. Hashtags are also searchable through graph search.
These Facebook feature updates have brought to Facebook greater potential of growth and of greater revenues from advertisement. Facebook can now charge higher fee from advertisers citing high targeting after the introduction of hashtags. Advertisers will also be willing to place their ads on a website which gives highly targeted traffic to them. Out of these three feature updates, only Photo commenting may not be used to its full potential. Both ‘verified profiles and pages’ and hashtags are great tools to Facebook users. While verified profiles provide a way for Facebook users to identify official profiles of famous people, hashtags would help them in joining conversations on any particular topic.
Have you tried these features yet? Do share your experience in the comment box below.
