Facebook adds a “save for later” button
Facebook has added a button that will let users save an item on their feed to read later – brilliant for if you come across an interesting sounding link whilst just doing a quick browse on the bus.
The way it will work is pretty similar to the likes of Pocket or Instapaper. On Facebook’s mobile app if you’re on a page (for say a film or TV show) or a place, or simply if a friend has shared a link on their news feed, you’ll either get a “save” button, or the ability to choose “save” from a dropdown menu. Give it a click and it is added to your save list.
To access your saves, on the Facebook phone app it appears that there will be an item on the menu to access it. We can’t see a similar option on the FB website yet, but we expect one will appear soon. Apparently unread saved items will sometimes appear in your newsfeed as a reminder.
Of course, ultimately Facebook want to get you sharing so if you swipe right on a saved item you’ll get the option to share it on or (like Instapaper), essentially mark it as read and add it to your archive.
This sounds like a great idea to us: Given that Facebook’s algorithms will only pick a selection of items each time you load the website, it can be easy to lose track of where you saw that thing. Now if only Twitter could rename “Favourite”, which can be used in a similar way, to “Bookmark”, as it is always awkward “favouriting” news stories about horrible deaths to read later…
