Facebook is known for social networking.
The feature, "Add a Link," lets users quickly attach links that are popular on Facebook to their status updates or comments. The new tool also has a search bar for finding links by keyword. The index only includes links that have been shared on Facebook and appears to favor links that have been posted frequently among a user's friends.
Until now, users had to grab a link from a browser window -- often after a Google search -- or from Facebook's "Copy Link" tool, which lets users copy the link from a loaded article within the app. The "Copy Link" tool is still available. However, the "Add a Link" feature gives users fewer reasons to leave the Facebook app, reduces the clicks needed to share content and diminishes the chances that the user will end up at Google. Instead of the four or five steps that might be required to find, copy and paste a link in a post, users can now add links with a single tap. Facebook is betting that the easier it is to share links, the more links a user will open and post and the more the social network will know about that user's interests.
The "Add a Link" icon is currently available to only some U.S. iOS users and appears near existing buttons such as camera roll, tag friends, activity and check in when users post.
"We’re piloting a new way to add a link that’s been shared on Facebook to your posts and comments," a Facebook spokesperson confirmed.
Beyond making it easier to share content, the link tool likely makes it faster to consume content because the link is already known by Facebook, letting articles potentially load faster, said Sephi Shapira, CEO of performance mobile advertising company MassiveImpact.
Facebook has long been obsessed with the user experience. The more appealing it is to read and browse the web through Facebook, the better shot the social network has at being used as a search tool and competing with Google for gathering user data, Shapira said.
"Facebook is trying to get into Google’s realm, which is search," said Shapira. "You use Google not to necessarily consume any content from Google, but to browse websites. Facebook is keen on getting a piece of that data."
Facebook's share of the U.S. mobile ad market was about 18.5% last year, according to eMarketer. Google led the U.S. mobile ad market with a 36.9% market share last year. It would be surprising if Facebook does not incorporate ads to monetize the "Add a Link" tool over time, Shapira said, for example, sponsored results at the top of the indexed links.
Facebook's link search bar is certainly not the network's first attempt to improve search within the app. Last December, Facebook announced it had indexed more than a trillion posts to make it easier to search for specific updates that a friend previously shared, such as videos from a wedding, photos of a pet or news stories. For now, the link icon and its search bar are available solely on mobile.
