Facebook Notes gets custom styles, challenges Medium

Facebook Notes — surprised the feature still exists? You're not the only one. The social network hasn't given Notes the same attention it has some of its other features, and many people ignore it altogether. Still, there's a subset of users who like penning long narratives or using Facebook as their personal blog, and that's where Notes comes in. Attention was drawn to the feature back in August when the social network began tweaking with it again, and today the company announced a full update.

The whole point of Facebook Notes was to provide a way around the social network's status-size limit — a limit so big at this point that you may not have realized there's a limit at all. That makes Notes relatively pointless, but Facebook hasn't given up on the feature yet. In a statement today, the social network said it has updated the feature.

The changes are relatively minor, but give Notes a distinct difference from statuses, and does so in such a way that seems like a direct challenge to long-form website Medium. Facebook users can now customize notes with a cover image, adjust text with things like quotes and bullets, and add text headers.

If you run a blog or you're considering running a blog, the Facebook update gives you a reason to reconsider Notes — you'll be able to format things a little more, and present content in an overall more modern way. Something very much needed for the old, mostly forgotten about feature.

SOURCE: Facebook