It happens to me all the time: I scroll through my Facebook News Feed when I have a few minutes to kill, and I find like five articles that my friends have posted that I want to read.
When that happens, I basically have two options at that point: either I open the tabs and let them sit there until I get to them later, or I try to remember to go back and find them when I have more time.
Obviously neither of those choices works very well. Having too many tabs open slows down my browser, and I will inevitably forget to go back and open them if I don’t have them open.
Perhaps this is not a problem that is exclusive to me, because it looks like Facebook may be introducing a new feature to fix it.
The new feature, which is being tested now, would let users save links that they found on Facebook so they can access them later, according to a report from AllThingsD on Wednesday.
Articles on the News Feed will have a button, which, when clicked, will put them into a folder marked “saved” on their apps menu.
it is unknown how far along the project is, or if and when it will be rolled out to users.
“We’re constantly testing new features, but we have nothing further to share at this time,” a Facebook spokesperson told VatorNews.
This is not the first time that Facebook has been rumored to be improving how people read on the site. This summer it was reported that the company was working on a Flipboard-like reading app.
It would aggregate Facebook content, specifically news articles, posted by Facebook users. It would allow users swipe to flip through these articles, ala Flipboard.
Facebook also revealed an updated News Feed that allowed users to choose how they wanted it to be sorted: either chronologically, or by only photos or music, or by articles that are trending.
This all fits in with the direction that Facebook has been going for a while now, where it has been trying to become a service where people can more easily discover content put up by their friends.
This will also help Facebook become a better place for people to get their news. According to a study out from Pew last month, 30% of U.S. adults get some news from Facebook.
That is a big number, but not as big as it could be when you realize that less than half of adult users, 47%, get news from the site. Facebook has significant room for improvement in this area, and allowing users to save articles is a step in the right direction.
(Image source: http://www.niemanlab.org)
