(PCM) While I was hoping for a “dislike” button, the latest news from Facebook is that the company is currently testing a read-it-later “Save” button. The button would allow you to essentially bookmark pages that come up on the web News Feed and store them on your profile page for you to read at a later time.
Almost two years ago, Facebook purchased Spool, a read-it-later app, that featured the ability to save not only articles, but video and other content to your phone so that you could read it at a later time. The app could also be used with or without internet capability.
Facebook has been toying with the idea of the “Save” button for quite some time and conducting tests, but the feature has never seen a complete roll-out and full release. It appears that right now the “Save” button is only appearing on the Facebook website and has not branched over into the mobile site as of yet.
According to TechCrunch.com, here is how the “Save” button will function:
Below an external link’s preview window near the Like button, those in the test group see a Save button. When clicked, it saves a link to the article to a “Saved” section of their Timeline. A shortcut to that Saved section also appears on their homepage’s left rail navigation sidebar. The Saved section shows a site’s headline, link, thumbnail image, the person who originally posted the article to your feed, and a share button.
The idea behind the “Save” button is to further push Facebook as a news gathering hub, and it is surely the company’s hope that referral traffic will pick up. There is some concern, especially with the mobile version of the site about it clogging up an already tight space on the mobile screen, however we are sure that they will be able to come up with something to streamline the process.