Facebook’s F8 developer conference today has shown that the social network company has a few things up its sleeves, from the 360-degree camera that Facebook has designed and built then open sourced, to the chat bots it’s going to add into Messenger for users. While both of those things are sure to grab the attention of people in camps both interested in 360-degree video content creation and users of Messenger, Facebook is also looking to breathe some new life into its save for later feature. For those who are unaware, Facebook offers a feature where you can save content that you stumble across within the app so you can view it at a later date.
To help bolster the use of the save for later feature perhaps in an attempt to get people to use it more, or maybe perhaps to simply get more users onto Facebook, the company is introducing a save to Facebook button that web developers can place on websites, allowing users an easy way to save content to Facebook for them to go back and check out when they have more free time. While the Save to facebook Button is likely to gain popularity over time, Facebook has stated that it will begin its introduction on two websites which include Overstock.com and Product Hunt.
The inclusion of a Save to Facebook button almost seems like a latecomer to the space, as options like Pocket have been around for almost as long if not longer than Facebook’s save for later feature within the service. Whatever Facebook’s reasons for waiting, Facebook likely expects the button to do well as it has stated that 250 million Facebook users engage with the save for later feature every single month. With those kinds of numbers, Facebook has an opportunity to drive people back to Facebook if users have the option to save content within their Facebook profile that they can check up on. Considering the amount of users that Facebook has globally who spend quite a bit of time on the service already, saving things to Facebook from outside of the app or website would be an easy way for them to gravitate back.