Facebook may emulate rival Twitter with introduction of hashtags

Facebook Inc is looking to improve its search and indexing capabilities  by adding the hashtag symbol, one of the most recognizable features of  its social networking rival Twitter, according to media reports. The  hashtag, which appears as the # symbol, makes it easier for users to  follow specific topics of conversation within the ever-changing stream  of comments posted on Twitter. Users type the hashtag alongside a  keyword - such as #election at the end of a Tweet, making it easy to  group comments on the same topic. Facebook could similarly  organize the conversations that take place on its more than one billon  member social network by incorporating hashtags, said The Wall Street  Journal which first reported the news on Thursday citing anonymous  sources, thought it noted that the feature wasn't being introduced  imminently. Facebook declined to comment. Facebook  introduced a revamped social search feature, dubbed Graph Search, in  January. The search tool allows users to trawl their network of friends, as well as info shared publicly by other Facebook users, to find  photos, interests and places, such as restaurants that are "liked" by  people on Facebook. The search tool does not currently allow users to search the contents of the actual conversations that are posted on  Facebook. Hashtags could help Facebook make such searches possible,  according to the technology blog TechCrunch, which also cited anonymous  sources as saying such a feature was in the works. It's not clear  that searching the stream of Facebook comments would yield the breadth  of results found on Twitter however. Unlike tweets, which are public and viewable to all users, most of the comments posted on Facebook are only viewable to a user's circle of friends. © Thomson Reuters 2013