14 DAY TRIAL // Facebook is testing a new way to share photo albums in the main timeline, as a company representative has confirmed for AdWeek's SocialTimes.
The new photo format is available only for selected users and replaces the image grid you see when someone shares a photo album or multiple photos on Facebook.
As seen below in the screengrab, the new photo sharing post format shows only one image and the album's title as a caption. What is not shown is the fact that after a short period of time, the image automatically rotates to the next photo in the album, showing a slideshow of all the shared pictures.
If the format seems familiar to you, then you've probably seen those "Year in Review" posts that tend to pop up on your timeline around New Year.
Facebook is constantly testing new features for its platform, and there's no guarantee this will be made available for everyone.
The new format has a good chance of ending up on your Facebook timeline
While the new photo sharing post format looks much sleeker than the misshaped photo grid some of us learned to hate, testing and approving new features on Facebook usually takes at least six months due to the various technical hurdles each feature needs to go through to ensure the platform works well on all types of devices.
The advantage this feature has is that only one image is loaded instead of 3, 4, or 5, as in the current photo grid, taking less time to load. As the first image is loaded and displayed, the other photos are fetched in the background, not blocking the timeline loading process.
Since speed is of essence for Facebook, especially because it caters to a lot of users with low bandwidth Internet connections, the new format has a fighting chance.
