Your Facebook status updates are only going to be seen by a certain percentage of your friends — that's just the way it is. But soon you might be able to pay the social network a couple of bucks in order to make your posts appear to more people.
The folks at TechCrunch and New Zealand news site Stuff were among the first to notice that Facebook is testing this new feature, which is apparently dubbed "Highlight."
It appears that Highlight is being tested only with a small percentage of Facebook users. Those who are among the choosen few see a little "Highlight" option next to the "Like" and "Comment" buttons underneath their Facebook posts. If they select the option, a prompt confirming that they really want to highlight their post will appear. As Facebook is apparently testing different price points for the feature, some folks might be asked to pay a dollar or two to highlight their posts while others will be able to do so for free. Payments can be made via credit card or PayPal.
Highlight reminds us a lot of Promoted Tweets — Twitter's way of allowing users to pay for more exposure — but, as TechCrunch's Josh Constine points out, there's a key difference: "Highlight lets the average user, not Pages or businesses" promote his or her content.
We asked Facebook for more information about Highlight and a spokesperson sent us a statement explaining that the social network is "constantly testing new features across the site."
"This particular test is simply to gauge people’s interest in this method of sharing with their friends," he added.
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