Facebook copies Twitter with introduction of hash tags
Taking a page from Twitter’s playbook, Facebook has started to introduce hashtags.
Hashtags used on Facebook will be clickable, just like on Twitter. The hashtags are aimed at adding context to a post or making it part of a bigger online discussion.
Click on a Facebook hashtag and you’ll see what other users and organisations are saying about the same topic.
"During primetime television alone, there are between 88 and 100 million Americans engaged on Facebook – roughly a Super Bowl-sized audience every single night," wrote wrote Greg Lindley, a product manager at Facebook, in a blog post. "The recent Red Wedding episode of Game of Thrones received over 1.5 million mentions on Facebook, representing a significant portion of the 5.2 million people who watched the show. And this year’s Oscars buzz reached an all-time high on Facebook with over 66.5 million interactions, including likes, comments, and posts."
Now with hashtags, users should be able to search for a specific point of interest or discussion. They also should be able to compose posts directly on hashtag feeds and click on hashtags that originated on other sites, like Instagram.
"Hashtags are just the first step to help people more easily discover what others are saying about a specific topic and participate in public conversations," said Lindley. "We’ll continue to roll out more features in the coming weeks and months, including trending hashtags and deeper insights, that help people discover more of the world’s conversations."
Adding hash tags to Facebook posts has been a habit of many users for some time. Whether people will actually click on tags instead of enjoying them as an ironic, sometimes arbitrary, categorisations remains to be seen.
IDG News Service
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