Facebook Is Testing New Kind of Status Update

by Christopher Freeburn | January 31, 2013 12:04 pm

[1]Facebook (NASDAQ:FB[2]) users who worry that their friends might not be fully apprised of exactly what they are doing or feeling at any given moment may not have to worry much longer[3].

The social media giant is testing a new set of visual updates. Users can choose to share their status with friends, selecting from a number of categories including eating, reading, watching, listening to, drinking and feeling, and adding pre-formatted media content, including books, TV shows and movies, as well as customized content, TechCrunch notes.

Adding these visual status updates is meant to deflect the rise of emotional update and media sharing apps like Path, GetGlue and Line. The company says that user emotional statuses will not be shared with advertisers.

However, by giving users a way to create their updates using specified categories, Facebook is compiling data that would be more difficult to obtain if users created their own updates completely by themselves. The information could help advertisers identify who is watching specific TV shows or reading popular books, or even food trends.

Facebook has recently partnered with retailers[4] including Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT[5]) and Michael Kors (NYSE:KORS[6]) to boost traffic and combine promotional messages.

Shares of Facebook fell about 2% in Thurday midday trading.

Source URL: https://investorplace.com/2013/01/facebook-is-testing-new-kind-of-status-update/

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