Facebook creates nostalgia with 'On This Day'

Facebook sends you blasts from the past with the launch of “On This Day”; a feature that infuses nostalgic memories of Facebook user posts from that day, years ago.

With Throwback Thursdays becoming a regular feature on most newsfeeds, Facebook has unveiled an easier and newer way to push content from the past to the present with “On This Day”. What it does is pretty simple: it shows you content from your Facebook profile, in the form of updates, photos or posts (either posted by you or tagged in) from this date in the past.

Currently, only you can see the content, unless you decide to share it with your friends – which we can presume is the end goal of this handy new feature. Sources say that Facebook does not have any plans to monetize this feature directly but it is focused on getting engagement through browsing and re-shares which in turn drives people to the newsfeed and increases time spent there, where ads are in fact visible (Nice try, Facebook!)

To access this feature, you can either click on the bookmark in the Facebook web sidebar or the mobile site/app’s navigation menu. Alternatively, you can find it by searching for “On This Day” within your Facebook search bar or visit http://facebook.com/onthisday.

The feature appears to be in beta testing and is said to roll out globally over the next week or so. If you’re getting a ‘sorry, this feature isn’t available’ message, it’s possible that it hasn’t launched in your market yet.