Facebook trialling ‘pay-to-promote’ status update feature

Would you pay US$2 to ensure that one of your status updates pops up in more of your friends’ news feeds? Facebook certainly hopes so, because that’s the exact feature that the social network giant is currently trialling with a small number of users, Engadget reports.

It’s worrying news for social butterflies and casual stalkers alike, and we can’t help but think this new micro-transaction direction is linked to Facebook’s stock market launch, which will put pressure on the company to keep shareholders happy.

It’s certainly not going to be a popular feature if it’s ever fully implemented and we expect to see a torrent of complaints hitting Mr Zuckerberg’s inbox in the very near future.

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Dan Grabham Editor-in-Chief

About

Dan is Editor-in-chief of Stuff, working across the magazine and the Stuff.tv website.  Our Editor-in-Chief is a regular at tech shows such as CES in Las Vegas, IFA in Berlin and Mobile World Congress in Barcelona as well as at other launches and events. He has been a CES Innovation Awards judge. Dan is completely platform agnostic and very at home using and writing about Windows, macOS, Android and iOS/iPadOS plus lots and lots of gadgets including audio and smart home gear, laptops and smartphones. He's also been interviewed and quoted in a wide variety of places including The Sun, BBC World Service, BBC News Online, BBC Radio 5Live, BBC Radio 4, Sky News Radio and BBC Local Radio.

Areas of expertise

Computing, mobile, audio, smart home