Paying to Promote Your Facebook Status: Tempting or Turn Off?

Have you ever posted an obviously brilliant Facebook status and been disappointed when nobody "likes" it? Or maybe you desperately needed to find a roommate, but couldn't generate interest among your friends. That could be because, according to TechCrunch, your status updates only reach 12% of your Facebook friends. Sucks for you, but it could work out in Facebook's favor. The social network is now offering users the opportunity to "highlight" updates -- that is, get them out to more friends -- for a price.

A test group has been given the ability to promote status updates by clicking a "Highlight" link underneath the status they want to push, right next to the "Like" and "Comment" links. Clicking "Highlight" initiates a pricing and payment window that informs them how much it will be (something like $2) and asks how the user would like to pay. It's unclear exactly how much this feature highlights posts, but it apparently makes them visible to more people for a longer period of time, and pushes it higher up on their news feed. Facebook says it's just an experiment to "gauge people's interest in this method of sharing." So, we've got to ask: are you interested?