Facebook invited members of the press to its headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. to "learn about a new product" on Thursday. Rumor is that this new product might be a video feature on Instagram.
According to Facebook's invitation, a "small team has been working on a big idea," and TechCrunch reports that video support on Instagram, the photo-sharing service acquired by Facebook for a cool billion dollars last year, might just be that "big idea."
Given the popularity of Twitter's Vine, which allows users to share six-second videos, it's not surprising that Facebook might seek to jump into the video-sharing business as well. According to Topsy Analytics, Vine recently passed Instagram in total Twitter shares. (This milestone occurred the day after an Android version of the Vine app was released.)
A slightly less-likely rumor connected to the Thursday event is that Facebook's been working on a news reader to fill the void created once Google Reader is shut down on July 1. "It could be a sort of 'trending articles on Facebook' feature, or a more full-blown RSS reader-style product," TechCrunch explains, adding that it's possible that this product won't be announced until further in the future, well after Thursday's event.
We'll have to wait until 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET, Thursday (June 20) to find out what Facebook's "big idea" is for sure. Who knows? The social network might surprise us with something completely unexpected.
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