You may have recognized notifications confirming that the recipient of your Facebook Messages and Chat had seen your messages in the first place. They’re being held accountable for the conversation and you no longer have to wonder if the recipient had seen those messages. Facebook announced that it is now bringing the same concept to Facebook Groups, which will display the names and number of people that have seen each post.
The notification will appear as a small “Seen by [X number of members]” button next to the number of likes the post has received — an invasive feature which could end up causing users to log on so much. Hovering over the button will reveal who and exactly at what time the member has seen the post. Any group member who you have given permission to view the post to will see the notification.
Other social networks including LinkedIn and Path already offer features that notify users about who viewed your profile or content. On LinkedIn and Path, visitors to your profile can be viewed. Path on the other hand also offers users a feature to see who has “read” or scrolled through your content. While it’s a feature that could offer analytics to Group members and Fan Page administrators as well as hold members accountable for their participation, a “read receipt” feature such as this may be best suited solely for productivity purposes. For non-professional uses, it just seems creepy.
