Facebook’s Mysterious New Feature

Posted by Nick O'Neill on September 5th, 2008 9:00 AM

Last night Facebook announced that they are going to release a new feature that developers can leverage when they roll out the new design to everybody. The timeframe for the rollout is most likely about a week but no exact dates were provided. The real question on everybody’s mind? What on earth is the new feature? The purpose of the new feature is clear: to drive more traffic to applications.

According to Eric Eldon even Facebook’s sub-tabs are experiencing a substantial decrease in traffic. Eldon has somehow translated this decrease in access to the sub-tabs into a decrease in overall page views. I’m not quite sure if this translation makes much sense. A profile, is a profile, is a profile on Facebook whether or not there are tabs.

One thing that’s clear from Josh Elman’s post last night is that developers want to drive more traffic to their applications within profiles. The sudden switch in metrics from daily active users to monthly active users has made it difficult for outsiders to judge the impact. Nobody knows what this mysterious new feature is but I’m sure all the developers want to know.

For now we’ll have to wait in anticipation as Facebook prepares to roll out a new the new feature and switches everybody over the new profile design.

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