Facebook isn’t generally considered as a journalist’s best friend, as it doesn’t quite come with the data trends and tools as Twitter, but that might start to change now. The company has announced a new curation tool called ‘Signal’ to assist journos in finding out what’s on rise, which works with Instagram, too.
Ever since its release, Twitter with its brisk delivery of breaking news and trends has appealed to journalists and people related to news. That’s what Signal will try to achieve, only with more tools.
Journalists can see who is trending the most, both through unranked and chronological factors. You can search in-depth about these topics too. You can check which celebrity is mentioned the most and who is conversing across the board with others.
Data can be verified/linked with supporting visual content from Facebook’s own Instagram. Content can be saved by writers and users for further usage in the future, which can be very convenient. Lastly, you can embed the posts from Signal in their blogposts and webpages.
The service will be free, at least in the beginning.
Integration with Instagram is also added so you can gather data from two social networks. The news comes a week after Facebook allowed verified journalists its “Mentions” feature which allows them to keep track of their mentions on the site. Together with Signal, Facebook has shown that it is serious in its success in this venture and is ready to take any measure to take the fight up to Twitter.
