With the coming of Facebook Paper earlier this year, Mark Zuckerberg stated that Facebook is best described as a “personalised newspaper”. Fortunately, if you follow or Like the right Pages, the articles that appear in your news feed are the most engrossing read in the world, if not exactly the most timely one.
However, Zuckerberg knows that you could be reading Facebook more in any given day, and he did want to facilitate these readers. Recently, Facebook appears to be testing a new “save for later” feature. This isn’t the first time the company has tested their ideas, but this time it seems to be more advanced and closer to wide release.
Basically, the Save feature is what apps such as Instapaper, Pocket and Read It Later have been doing for years. The Apple browser, Safari, has added a similar feature called Reading List (available on mobile in iOS6 and on the desktop with Mac OS X Mavericks). Still, this feature differs in some significant ways. Firstly, you can save more than just articles. This way, you can set aside anything from your cousin’s holiday snaps to a change in your secret crush’s relationship status quickly. Secondly, it allows you to do your later reading within Facebook, where the company will be able to monitor and monetise ever more of your reading behaviour. What we don’t know yet is whether you will be able to read those articles and links when you’re offline.
This feature might come handy during free time, like while waiting in line for coffee. Knowing you can Save links for later and skim by them in favour of quick-to-consume content like photos and status updates could make brief feed sessions more pleasurable, and Facebook only needs to show you a few organic stories to slot in an ad alongside your fix of ambient intimacy.