Following the introduction of hashtags, embedded posts and a short video service for Instagram, Facebook is testing yet another Twitter-like feature this week. The social network is experimenting with a Trending Topics banner in the news feed, which will show you what topics are currently popular on Facebook, among your friends and others.
On Monday, Facebook detailed how it was working hard to make the News Feed more relevant for users. Older posts that are still relevant now stay visible for longer, for example, thanks to Facebook’s algorithms. Trending Topics is being tested first on the mobile version with a small number of US users – when you click on a topic, you’ll see what your friends are saying about it, and then what other users are saying, outside your friends.
AllThingsD managed to see the Trending Topics banner in action, which you can see below. You can see how Jeff Bezos (Amazon CEO), Shark Week and baseball’s Alex Rodriguez are all popular this week in the US on Facebook. This is an attempt to increase activity and time on Facebook, by taking advantage of the fact that many people now use Facebook to discuss political points and protests, as well as celebrities and products.
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[Source: AllThingsD]
