After a 5-year gap, Facebook has refreshed its Facebook Notes with new features and additions that allow users to write a full-fledged blog post. The updated version of Notes now available to everyone, gives users the ability to add a cover photo, captions, and the ability to resize images along with new text formatting features.
“We’re rolling out an update to make notes on Facebook more beautiful and customizable. Notes are now an even better way to write a longer post and share with anyone — whether it’s a small group of friends or everyone on Facebook,” said the company in its blog post.
Users now have a set of basic formatting tools at their disposal such as headers, add blockquotes along bulleted and numbered lists. Users can also bold, underline and italicize text through keyboard shortcuts.
Facebook explains, “With this update, you can add a cover photo that represents what your note is all about. You can caption and resize photos, and format your text into headers, quotes or bullets. For instance, you can recap your summer vacation or an important time in your life to update the people you care about. You can voice your opinion on something you saw in the news or write an open letter you want to share with the world. You can share a special recipe with a bulleted list of ingredients and photos of each step.”
Before the update, Facebook Notes were mere white pages, which was occasionally used by a handful of users to write a long post about a memory, experience, or personal opinions, which appeared in a special section of their profiles. Though the company has been rather ignorant about the feature as the last major update it received was back in 2010. Hence, it could not become as popular as some of Facebook’s other features such as location check-ins or Messenger.
However, the refreshed Notes allows better use of images and thanks to the addition of basic text formatting options – making it very similar to what a blog post would look-a-like. It looks much more elegant courtesy of a new visually appealing layout along with new fonts. Moreover, given Facebook’s recent tie-ups with top publishing giants, it apparently makes sense for the company to encourage its users to use the social network as a place where they can promote their blog posts.
Interested users can head over to facebook.com/notes and get access to the feature, though for now Notes functionality is limited to the web nor has the company mentioned anything as to when we can see the feature rolled out on mobiles.
