Facebook Questions Launched

A new Facebook feature, Facebook Questions, is in the pipeline.Similar to Yahoo! Answers or Quora, Facebook Questions will allow users to put a question to the entire population of Facebook. The service is currently only available to a small number of people on the site and will be developed in response to the feedback received.

Features of the new service will include:

•    If you have a question about something in a photo you have taken, you can post it on Facebook Questions to find the answer

•    Polls

•    Tagging. All questions will be public and accessible by everyone on the internet. Tagging allows Facebook users to target their questions towards those best equipped to answer it

•    Users will be able to “follow” questions and keep track of new answers to be posted

•    Facebook Questions will add a new bar at the top of the page that allows you to update your status, add photos and links or ask a question

Until the service is rolled out universally, it is difficult to gauge whether or not this service can hope to rival the likes of Yahoo! Answers or Quora. but the sheer size of the Facebook community is a huge advantage.

Already well established as the number one medium for staying in contact with your friends online, Facebook Questions is more evidence that Facebook is rapidly growing beyond that purpose. Other indications include the plans by budget airline EasyJet has plans to begin selling on Facebook and the “Like” button spreading out beyond the confines of the site itself.

In other words, the reach of Facebook is spreading out across the web, but also establishing itself as a central hub for more than one thing. Facebook was initially considered a “cool” place to stay in contact but as the rapidly declining popularity of MySpace, a site cannot survive on “cool” alone, as there is always a successor on the horizon.

It is probably the constant roll-out of new features such as Facebook Questions, and the increasing presence on the rest of the internet that will save Facebook from MySpace’s fate; that of stagnating and falling out of favour when something better comes along.

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