In an attempt to spite Google, or at least remain competitive with the search engine’s integrated social-mobile strategy, Facebook is testing a new feature for all the photo enthusiasts out there.  They’re offering a new photo syncing feature for Android users.

Auto-sync for mobile

According to Facebook, Photo Syncing allows you to directly store new photos you take on your Android device to a private album on Facebook.  Then later, you can edit which photos you’d like to share and who you would like to share them with.  Sounds familiar?  It is, because Google+ already has that feature.  Will Google sue Facebook for this?

Anyway, the feature is available to some Android users using the latest version of Facebook for Android app.  If you’re one of the few who have early access to the feature, all you need to do is, using your mobile phone, click on the FB app, go to your Timeline, tap Photos, tap Sync at the bottom of the photos section then just follow the instructions given.

You can also do this with your computer.  Just open your FB account, go to your Timeline, click photos, click Synced from Phone at the top of the photos section then follow the step-by-step instruction.

Before you go and sync all your photos from your mobile device, keep in mind that you can only  privately store up to 2GB of photos.

To learn more about FB’s Synced Photos, check out their Help Center.

More experiments

In other FB news, the social networking giant will reportedly start charging businesses for using Facebook Offers – their kind of daily deals platform in the hopes of turning the free service into an income generating platform.

“We think this aligns incentives nicely,” said Gokul Rajaram, director of product management for Facebook’s advertising and Pages businesses. “The best results on Facebook Offers will come from organic distribution plus paid distribution.”

According to Reuters, FB will charge at least $5 “on related ads to promote each Facebook Offer to a targeted audience of fans and friends of fans.”  But the fee will depend on the size of a company’s Facebook pages.

“The requirement to pay for related ads will focus merchants on who and where they want the offer to reach,” Rajaram added.