Depending on where you are in the world, Facebook may have already enabled you to add a color background to your text-only status updates. Just last week the social media behemoth announced that it would be rolling out this update in select countries, and this signals a change in emphasis from Facebook, as personal status updates are the core reason for its existence.
Colored backgrounds on Facebook
Having been around for over a decade, you may not know that Facebook’s main attraction isn’t advertising. In fact, it’s not even those funny memes or interesting photos that keep popping up. Instead, its focus has always been the kind of posts you share with your friends & family, and vice versa.
What this new feature does is allow you to select a color that will appear behind your message. Some color options offer an Instagram-style color gradient, which adds more style than standard flat colors.
Rolling out worldwide
A Facebook spokesperson said, “We’re rolling out a change to help people make their text posts more visual. Starting today, people can update the background color of their text-only posts on Android.”
As of that time, the update was rolling out to Android users only, with iOS and desktop updates expected to come soon after. Additionally, it seems as though this update was not initially available in the U.S., with some other regions beeing preferred as test beds. However, even though the updates are not available to all, everyone can see a text-only status update that uses the background colors.
Why is this happening?
Earlier this year Facebook reported that it was experiencing a decline in original, personal sharing, with the figures as follows: original content broadcasting down 21% compared to 2015 and original broadcast sharing down 15% from April 2015 to 2016. However, the social giant has since attempted to play down the impact.
However, over recent months, Facebook has started to encourage more text-only updates by making the text larger for smaller posts. It more than likely hopes to attract more attention now that the colored background option is rolling out.
What is Facebook’s future?
All of this focus on the word has many who know the site well feeling a little confused because Mark Zuckerberg has long preached the virtues of rich media. He sees the future of his empire centered around the likes of video, virtual reality, and maybe augmented reality, but there’s no getting away from the written word, especially when your interface is a mobile device or a computer. But when you have aspirations as large as Zuckerberg’s surely the sky has no limits.
If you’re an Android user, go to Google Play and Search for the Facebook App. If you already have it installed, click update and wait for it to install.If the new update has reached you, there will be a color menu on the status update window.
