Facebook began testing Trending Topics last year on both desktop and mobile. On Thursday, the company announced that it is rolling out the new feature, called simply “Trending,” to desktop users “in select countries”. They’ll continue to test the feature on mobile.
Trending, Facebook says, is “designed to surface interesting and relevant conversations in order to help you discover the best content from all across Facebook.”
“To the right of your News Feed, you’ll see a list of topics that have recently spiked in popularity,” says engineering manager Chris Struhar. “The list is personalized, including topics based on things you’re interested in and what is trending across Facebook overall. Each topic is accompanied by a headline that briefly explains why it is trending. You can click on any headline to see the most interesting posts from your friends or Pages that are talking about that particular topic.”
By default, Facebook displays three trends. If you click see more, you’ll see 10.
Here’s what a Trending page looks like when you click on one of the trends:
Facebook has been making a lot of moves to surface news content more. Late last year, they announced News Feed algorithm changes to do so. The company is also expected to launch a Flipboard-like reader this month.
Images via Facebook