Facebook copies Twitter yet again, launches hashtags to let users add context and discover shared interests

Facebook today announced that it is bringing hashtags to its service, letting users add context to a post, indicate that it is part of a larger discussion, as well as discover shared interests. The company says hashtags have become “a vital part of popular culture” and since it has seen users using them on the social network organically, it has decided to actually implement the feature.

While you could always technically create a hashtag on Facebook (just put a # before any word), they will now be clickable, taking you to a feed of what other people and Pages are saying about that event or topic. On hashtag pages, you will naturally only be able to see the posts that you would normally see elsewhere on the social network: those that your friends have shared with you as well as those shared as Public.

The new feature means Facebook users can now:

• Search for a specific hashtag from your search bar. For example, #Wimbledon2013, #FathersDay or #Wedding.


• Click on hashtags that originate on other services, such as Instagram.


• Compose posts directly from the hashtag feed and search results.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, the hashtag is a word or a phrase prefixed with the symbol #. Facebook mentions other services that use hashtags, putting Instagram first on its list, and then noting competitors Twitter, Tumblr, and Pinterest, but notably excluding Google+. Although Twitter does not own the concept of the hashtag, the company has popularized it to the point most people associate the phrase with the social network – nowadays it’s difficult to find a Twitter feed without multiple hashtags, and many tweets have arguably too many.

Facebook and Twitter regularly grab features from each other as use cases for the two social networks continue to overlap. Many users nowadays have both Facebook and Twitter accounts, although the former service is still significantly larger than the latter.

Recently, Facebook changed the name of its “Subscribe” button to “Follow” and also renamed subscribers to followers. This tweak came after Facebook built its own button similar to Twitter’s Follow button.

A rumor suggesting Facebook could soon be adding hashtag support first surfaced in March. Given that Facebook last year acquired Instagram, which uses hashtags mainly to let users sort through photos, we noted at the time that hashtags could be a way for the company to bring the two services closer together, but right now that doesn’t appear to be the case.

Facebook is presumably adopting the hashtag for the same reasons as Twitter: to let its users organize and filter messages around a single topic or theme. This offers yet another way to browse the social network, in addition to manually going to people’s Timeline profiles and of course visiting the News Feed.

In fact, the company hints that hashtags “are just the first step” in a series of features that will bring conversations about public events, people, and topics on the social network to “the forefront of people’s Facebook experience.” Some of these include trending hashtags and deeper insights, slated to arrive “in the coming weeks and months,” but Facebook wouldn’t share more.

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Facebook opens its first data center outside the US, near the Arctic Circle in Luleå, Sweden

Facebook today announced it has opened up its newest data center in Luleå, Sweden, a small town at the northern tip of the Baltic Sea, which is just 100km south of the Arctic Circle. This is the company’s first data center outside the US, and one of the largest of its kind in Europe.

Facebook chose Luleå for at least three big reasons. First, it’s a prime location to take advantage of outside cooling: the temperature has not been above 30°C (86°F) for more than 24 hours since 1961 and the average temperature is around 2°C (36°F). Next, dams on the Luleå river generate so much renewable electricity that half can be exported. Lastly, Sweden has a dense fiber-optic network, so data can flow reliably to the rest of Europe, and beyond.

The Luleå Data Center naturally has its own Facebook Page, with over 9,400 Likes. Facebook used the Page to announce the data center is now handling live traffic from around the world and to remind everyone how efficient the data center really is:

All the equipment inside is powered by locally generated hydro-electric energy. Not only is it 100% renewable, but the supply is also so reliable that we have been able to reduce the number of backup generators required at the site by more than 70 percent. In addition to harnessing the power of water, we are using the chilly Nordic air to cool the thousands of servers that store your photos, videos, comments, and Likes. Any excess heat that is produced is used to keep our office warm.

Nearly all the technology in the facility is based on Open Compute Project (OCP) designs. OCP is a Facebook-founded initiative that sees the company and its partners commit to developing and sharing designs for data center infrastructure — everything from the servers and their racks to the cooling systems and power supplies.

Rumors that Facebook was to open its first non-US datacenter in Sweden first started in May 2011, but were only confirmed by the company in October 2011. At the time, Tom Furlong, Facebook’s director of site operations, made the following statement: “We concluded Luleå offered the best package of resources, including a suitable climate for environmental cooling, clean power resources, available land, talented regional workforce and supportive business and corporate environment.”

This is the company’s third data center after Prineville, Oregon and Forest City, North Carolina. Facebook already has plans for a fourth one in Altoona, Iowa, slated to start serving user traffic in 2014.

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Minilogs lets you bookmark and share content via ‘Web playlists’, raises $266,000

After a private beta warm-up, today sees the launch of Minilogs, which aims to make it easier for people to bookmark and share a variety of rich digital content through Web ‘playlists’, or logs.

Backed by a fresh round of seed funding to the tune of 200,000 euros ($266,000), Minilogs basically wants to build a social bookmarking app that is fit for today’s Web.

By creating logs, which are essentially collections of links to photos, videos, sounds, maps, slides and whatnot, Paris, France-based Minilogs lets users easily save, organize, remix and share different types of media, unlike a Pinterest for instance.

Users can organize their favorite content in private or public logs, create cross-platform playlists, view and play them directly on the Minilogs website using a player, or embed logs on their own websites.

French newspaper Le Figaro does this, to give you an example.

To add content to logs, users can input direct URLs or use the startup’s tools, which currently include a Chrome extension and bookmarklet.

For whatever reason, Minilogs didn’t share the names of its early-stage investors. We asked and will update when we hear back.

In the meantime, Wu-Tang Forever!

See more Logs by gigi on Minilogs.com

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