Facebook’s interest in publishing continues to evolve. A redesign of its blog-like Notes tool, which lets you post longer updates with photos to your friends, is now rolling out. The move, which was first spotted last month as Facebook began testing it, marks the first time Notes has been updated in years. It now has a design that will look familiar to anyone who has ever read a post on Medium, complete with big cover image at the top and reduced text density. “Facebook has always been a place to share your thoughts with friends, and notes are a meaningful way for people to do that,” the company said in a blog post. I guess?
Casey Newton is a contributing editor who has been writing about tech for over 10 years. He founded Platformer, a newsletter about Big Tech and democracy.
Old Notes (left) vs. new Notes
Since the last time Notes was updated, Facebook has worked to make itself a better destination for public sharing. Mark Zuckerberg regularly makes news now by posting public status updates to his 37 million followers. Notably, though, Zuckerberg and other public figures on the platform are broadcasting with status updates, not Notes. If there’s a huge upside in developing Notes into a full-featured publishing platform, I don’t see it. Until Facebook’s own executives start using it, it’s likely to remain a curiosity.
