Facebook released a new version of its Questions feature on yesterday, the result of nearly a year of beta testing. The new version of Questions takes the focus off public inquiries (a service already dominated by Q&A sites like Quora) and instead focuses on soliciting recommendations from friends.
“There are a lot of places you can go on the internet to ask questions of people who you don’t know, but there are very few places you can go to get responses from your friends,” said Adrian Graham, a project manager for Questions. “We thought that this is where we should focus.”
When asking a question, users have an option to create a poll with restricted answers or one that allows anybody to add answers. The latter option is helpful if, for instance, they want to ask their friends for restaurant recommendations.
Generally, this type of question only requires a short answer, but it’s not as though there are a limited number of options. Friends can add their favorite restaurants to the answer list easily, and if they have something else to say can write it in an attached comment section.
As users respond, each option’s box fills to reflect its popularity. This way, viewers see the poll questions and results at the same time. Facebook also displays the profile photos of respondents next to the options they select.
If you don’t want to wait for a friend to ask a question on their profile in order to use the new feature can download Facebook questions here
