Facebook starts phasing out 'Questions'

Facebook is phasing out its 'Questions' feature, which allows users to poll their friends directly from a newsfeed. According to CNET, a Facebook representative has said the company is now shifting its focus to “other things”.

Facebook's Questions, however, will be available inside Facebook's Groups and Pages products, but the social networking giant has already begun removing the feature from users' News Feeds. Moreover, users will still have access to old Questions which they'd asked via the Activity Feed. The phase out will take place over the next few days.

AllFacebook quotes a Facebook spokesperson as saying: “Yes, starting today, we are going to begin removing the Questions feature from the composer for users. The removal will happen over the course of a couple of days. Pages and groups will still have the Questions functionality, and users can still access all past Questions and answers. We’re choosing to focus our efforts elsewhere.”

Facebook had launched 'Questions' in 2010 but it failed to gain traction among users. So, what “other things” Facebook is concentrating on now? The company hasn't said anything about this, but rumours predict the shift in focus is onto developing a solid search feature. It may be recalled that Mark Zuckerberg had also hinted at the company's efforts to ramp up its search functionality, having said, “[Facebook is] pretty uniquely positioned to answer a lot of questions people have.” It's sort of "friend mining".