Are you afraid all your friends on Facebook will miss out on your latest status update? You know, because it’s super-important? Well fret no more.
The social networking giant is reportedly testing out a system that lets people pay US$2 to promote their status updates above everyone else’s. At the moment, the feature is only available to a select group of ordinary users.
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What it’s effectively doing is monetising is popularity — sort of like one of those really shitty American high-schools from bad 90s movies.
Facebook hasn’t given any indication of how long it plans to run the test for.
The official statement from Facebook is:
“We’re constantly testing new features across the site. This particular test is simply to gauge people’s interest in this method of sharing with their friends.”
If you’re one of the people who Facebook has selected for the trial, you’ll see a “Highlight’ option appear next to the like and share buttons below your status. Once you click on the option, you can pay to have your update promoted via PayPal or credit card.
According to TechCrunch the service is currently being trialed in New Zealand, which was also the first country to get Timeline.
If nothing else, this kind of product means you get to stop just being Facebook’s products and start being one of its clients.