Facebook Actions Are Coming to Status Updates

Update: A source close to the company has confirmed this new functionality is available as option in the Facebook status composer. For now this works on the web and m-touch for some users, but not yet on mobile. I think this might be the visual sharing reported by TechCrunch in January this year, but I don't have the functionality in my own Facebook account so it is hard to tell.

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When I saw this status update in my Facebook news feed I did a double take. Can you spot what's different about it?

I clicked through on the word "coffee" and was taken to the coffee interest page.

It turns out TechCrunch wrote about the introduction of Facebook actions over a year ago. As the article explains:

The new app actions are basically a conceptual expansion of actions posted by apps like Spotify and the Washington Post, and use verbs and nouns that go beyond the non custom actions like “listen” “watch” and “read” to “bought,”"spot,”"pose,”"want,”"love” and “become an expert.”

While these actions were announced as available from within apps, this is the first time I've seen it used in my news feed outside of app-generated actions such as "liked" (Facebook) or "listened to" (Spotify) or "pinned" (Pinterest), and I'm not even sure it was generated with an app - it appears like a written status message with no application source.

I tried to update my status to mention the "coffee" interest page and see if it would automatically prompt me to select an action, but no luck.

While initially I was just curious to figure out what Facebook might be doing, it's clear that being able to organize the actions we're taking in life like drinking coffee right now could help Facebook better target advertising. I'm sure Starbucks would be interested to know that I drink coffee every day.