Facebook to Add Digg Like Feature

Facebook Users Will Soon be Able to Vote On News Feed Items

According to Valleywag, Facebook employees are currently beta testing a news feed item voting system. There is no word on if or when this feature will be made public. The idea behind the voting system is simple. As an new items appear on your news feed, you can vote them up (+) or down (-), adding increased user interaction with news feed items.

As Valleywag points out, the actually functionality is not the big news so much as how this new feature increases user interactivity with the news feeds given the increase focus on advertising within the news feed. The more you get people “using” the news feed rather then just looking at it, the higher the chances that users will actually interact with the advertisements that will be present. The more user interaction with the ads, the more effective they will be. The more effective the ad, the more advertisers will want to use the medium. The more advertiser want to use the medium, the more Facebook can charge advertisers. The more Facebook can charge advertisers, the more money they will make.

Does anyone else think that Facebook is treading a fine line between delivering a valuable utility and building a platform for user exploitation by advertisers?

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