Facebook Inc unveiled a test on Thursday that charges users to send certain types of messages through the social network, the latest example of the company looking for new sources of revenue and profit.Until now, Facebook's messaging system sends the most-relevant messages, including those from users' Facebook friends, into an Inbox and siphons off less-relevant messages, such as potential spam, in an "Other" folder.
"Today we're starting a small experiment to test the usefulness of economic signals to determine relevance," Facebook said. "This test will give a small number of people the option to pay to have a message routed to the 'Inbox' rather than the 'Other' folder of a recipient that they are not connected with."
A Facebook spokesman said the charge for the test is $1 per message, but added that the company is still looking for the "optimum" price. Users can only receive one of these paid, re-routed