As if Facebook weren't annoying enough.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the social network may adopt Twitter's arguably most tiresome -- and arguably most Corporate -- feature: the hashtag. Facebook is testing the effectiveness of hashtags and is considering adding the categorizing feature to its site, reports the WSJ citing sources familiar with the matter.
Ugh, "please don't," begged Business Insider after the news broke Thursday afternoon.
On Twitter, Instagram, and Google+, users can use add a '#' symbol (hashtag) before words and phrases. Doing so turns that word or phrase into a link that leads to all other uses of that word or phrase. Hashtags, while a Twitter staple, are historically unpopular.
The hashtag seemed to get completely co-opted by The Man this year after American Express created a way to allow cardholders to make purchases by using hashtags.
Just what Facebook needs, more corporate advertising! In a study of follow predictors on Twitter, it was found that "overuse of hashtags" will "significantly reduce follower gain."
Facebook seems to like co-opting other social media sites' tools. In late 2012, Facebook took a page out of Snapchat's book and created an app to send self-destructing video and photo messages to friends, called Poke. It was not successful, to say the least. Instead of creating its own version of Instagram, Facebook just bought the company.
Let us hope that this hashtag thing doesn't actually happen, or people may start leaving Facebook even more than they already are.
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