Facebook To Introduce 'Trending' That Will Tell You What You Want To See.

Facebook is due to roll out a new feature called 'trending,' giving you a personalized feed of what's most popular. Gone are the days when Facebook was simply about finding friends and 'liking' their status updates. Following swiftly on from their introduction of the 'hashtag' in June, Facebook will now tell you what's most popular, using their new 'trending' feature.

Facebook plans to scour the entire platform for 'trending' topics, creating a personalized list of popular topics for each user. The topics will combine both the users interests, and the content getting the most attention on Facebook.

Every trend featured will show a short description, which when clicked on, will link to lists of posts and articles related to that topic.

To create the trending news feed, Facebook will use an algorithm that will determine which topics are trending, by recognizing when there is "a sharp increase in popularity," explained a spokesperson. Topics won't necessarily be those with a large volume of popular posts or articles on Facebook. For example, if you always like 'funny, cute, cat videos' you won't be inundated with an influx of new ones. The trending topics won't be those that are always popular on Facebook, but the topics that are receiving an unusual peak in mentions and activity.

Whilst this feature is 'new' to Facebook, Twitter has long implemented the use of trending topics alongside users main twitter feed for years. This wouldn't be the first time that Facebook has been influenced by the popular microblogging site, Twitter.

Unlike Twitter, the trending posts on Facebook won't include any sponsored or promoted content at this time. It is possible, however, that this feature will be introduced in the near future.

The 'Trending' feature will start to appear alongside the news feed of desktop users on Thursday. The first countries to have this feature will be the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, India and Australia, with mobile tests of trending also being rolled out on Thursday.