Facebook launches 'Save,' for all those things you didn't have time to read

AsAp · July 22, 2014

The idea is simple: Allow users to create a list of music, movies, and articles they want to read later. But is it enough?

Facebook gets it: Sometimes, there's just too much stuff in your feed to keep up. So, the company's launching a new feature called "Save" to allow customers to mark things they'd like to see later.

If a user sees something on their timeline, such as an article about Apple's upcoming earnings announcement from CNET, they can indicate that they want to save it from their timeline by tapping on the top-right corner of the story. Facebook says places, movies, TV, and other items can also be placed in the Save list.

Users can view their saved items under the "more" tab on their smartphone or tablet. It will also be accessible through a standard Web browser on a computer.

The move is also a half-step into competition with other services, such as Instapaper and Pocket, which promise a way for users to collect interesting items from around the Web that they'd like to read later.The new Save feature brings an interesting twist to the world's largest social network. Until now, the only way items such as news articles would rise to the top of any given user's news feed was via an intricate algorithm that managed what users see based upon their interests and usage of the site. That algorithm was at the heart of Facebook's controversial emotion study in 2012.

But Facebook's service is limited: Users can't send items to the service from the outside world. The service also only works when connected to the Internet, so those on an airplane, a remote desert island, or living in parts of San Francisco without reception are out of luck.

Facebook said the new feature should be rolling out to iOS, Android, and Web users in the next few days.

http://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-launches-save-for-all-those-things-you-didnt-have-time-to-read/