When we wrote about Facebook’s minor design changes earlier today, we didn’t take an extremely close look at the screenshots that were embedded in the accompanying blog post the company’s design team published about the tweaks. If we had, we may or may not have noticed that they featured two nuggets that most definitely deserve a second glance, but FBhive most certainly took notice.
What did they see?
Well for starters, Facebook Product Designer Alexandre Roche’s profile appears to have an extra filter for his news feed, labeled ‘Outside World’ and accompanied by an icon that represents a laboratory beaker (likely because it concerns an experimental feature).
Additionally, FBhive has spotted what appears to be a new ‘plus’ icon and number next to the Comment and Like numbers for a Video in the Highlights section of Roche’s profile page.
This calls for speculation!
FBhive – assuming it’s not a third-party application – believes ‘Outside World’ is a filter that would display content from other websites and applications you’ve subscribed to inside Facebook. This would extend the social network into a giant web-based RSS reader that could integrate seamlessly with the sharing features offered by Facebook. Makes sense to us, and we can imagine this would make waves in Webland if true. That is, if it ever sees the light of day.
The second thing FBhive spotted in my opinion is far more intriguing. As reported by the Facebook-centric blog, the (+) sign that appears next to the number of comments and likes of a highlighted video – uploaded by Facebook employee Helen Min – looks like the icon that is used for Facebook Credits (check for yourself here). These can be used by members of the social network to purchase virtual gifts in Facebook’s Gift Shop, give credits to other users or to interact with a select number of third-party applications such as GroupCard and SocialCalendar.
Unless of course it isn’t a plus sign at all and we’re looking at it the wrong way (Erick says it looks more like a diamond). Question remains then what it represents, possibly the number of shares or reposts, or a shortcut to bookmarking content?
If it is in fact the Credits icon, the question is why this virtual currency could in the future possibly be assigned by users to content like videos and possibly other multimedia. FBhive thinks it could be a way for publishers, amateurs and professionals alike, to monetize material uploaded to the social networking service by directly getting tipped by viewers and fans through micro-payments. Again, this is a plausible explanation, and an exciting one to think over considering Facebook’s highly anticipated payment platform (which is currently being tested).
Care to speculate a little more?
Update: Facebook got back to us. The credits are a feature Facebook has been testing since April and “Outside World” is a feature for Facebook employees which allows them to filter out the streams of other Facebook employees and see only the streams of their non-Facebook friends.
Looks like a dollar sign ($) to me.
I assume you mean the ‘5′ next to the alleged plus sign? I think it’s a number, looking at the likes and comments of the videos underneath.
By the way, how many people noticed that Techcrunch ditches http://tcrn.ch for bit.ly too?
(just in case: http://twitter....atus/3559373592)
It is a great webstite. They are always ahead of the curve.
I don’t say this enough: I LOVE FB!
The like button is good, but not enough. I hope that plus sign means something wonderful.
Great ‘investigative’ reporting Robin
What is that heart sign right on top?
The user has simply named one of their Friend lists as “♥” and dragged it to the top of their Filter list.
The plus sign is for the credits test that was rolled out to a few schools then stopped. You could give credits to people for making good content. I think Techcrunch reported on this.
Okey, a dampener from me. Try changing your ‘current city’ to ‘outside world’. Im on mobile browser so can’t check myself. Because second filter is city filter.
ich believe the “outside world” are all updates that are set for ‘everyone’ to see, something like “everyone else’s (but not my friend’s) tweets” (or ‘fbeets’).
the [+] sign could also be an upcoming ‘retransmit’ or retweet feature
… or the beaker icon signifies new forms of (terrestrial or ET life), hence the ‘everyone else’ title
I think that is the best explanation. But the micro-payments theory doesn’t sound too weird at all.
I think it is indeed “+5″ and will be an indication of additional “likes” outside the Facebook platform – eg perhaps summing likes from Friendfeed and favourites from Twitter for those people that have their Facebook status also appear on those services where non-friends can comment and like the same update.
Why has no-one suggested that “Outside World” is a feed of all activity as passed through FriendFeed? Whereas your Facebook feed is FB specific items relating to your own account and Friends, Outside World could be the same for everywhere else you are present and have linked to FriendFeed.
Facebook Connect also enables the ability to post stuff back to Facebook — as you’ll know from commenting on TechCrunch — so this stuff could also get posted there, either directly or through FriendFeed.
Anyone else agree?
Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
If I were to guess I would say “outside world” means people outside your network (”public updates”).
And + is probably just a favourite you will be able to find quickly in future.
It’s for how many times this movie has been shared, right now if same movie is being shared by my different friends, it appears separately … probably its grouping unique content ?
check this one http://www.sizl...e.blogspot.com/
I’d like to go the other way – I want a public page of all my photo albums. Like Flickr. But not on Flickr.
def not a ‘plus’
it’s a diamond-shape like the bases in baseball.
You wrote:
The credits are a feature Facebook has been give credits to other users “>testing since April
?? Was that a typo? If yes, please feel free to delete this post.