IMAGE: MASHABLE, CHRISTINA ASCANI
Aiming to keep users on the platform and possibly prompt more ads, Facebook started letting restaurants post menus on their Facebook pages on Thursday.
The social networking giant is using Constant Contact's SinglePlatform, an online listing service that helps local businesses showcase products, photos and menus. The program is only available right now in the U.S. and Canada, though if your business is outside those countries, you can upload a PDF of your menu via "page info" under "settings."
While a restaurant could conceivably accomplish the same thing by posting a photo of its menu on its Page, Facebook's move could pave the way for direct ordering from restaurants.
You can't click through to make an order, but that seems like a logical future addition. Facebook signaled its interest in connecting users to restaurants last year when it partnered with OpenTable to let users make dinner reservations without leaving their News Feeds.
IMAGE: FACEBOOK
If restaurants exploit the feature en masse, the biggest loser will likely be Yelp, which makes menus a regular component of its reviews. Tapping the technology behind Facebook's recent Nearby Friends geolocations feature and integration with Facebook's Graph Search could also make this a useful addition down the road for Facebook users and a possible substitute or addition to Yelp.
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