Facebook is testing a service that would charge users $1 to guarantee that a message sent to a non-friend will be visible in the recipient’s inbox and won’t be dumped into the dreaded “Other” folder, which is where most messages from people with whom you have no mutual friends end up. The test is being conducted with a small group of users in the U.S., and Facebook says users won’t receive more than one such paid message per week. The company notes that the test will gauge “the usefulness of economic signals to determine relevance.” Facebook also says the test is only for personal messages between individuals in the U.S., though we’ll have to see what happens if the feature gets rolled out to the masses. It seems like a potential revenue generator for the company, albeit another headache for users.
Along with this test, Facebook is also unveiling new two filters to enable users to manage their message inboxes: Basic Filtering (mostly messages from friends and people you may know) and Strict Filtering (mostly messages from just friends).
There’s also word that Facebook is testing a new look to Timeline. The new version brings back tabs, and does away with thumbnail pictures for “Friends,” “Photos” and “Map.” Also, an “About” tab shows users all the information they’ve given Facebook about themselves and displays a list of all their friends.
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