During the test period, prices will vary -- from free to $2 -- as Facebook feels up its members to find the best price point for the feature.

Posts that you highlight will appear higher in news feeds, stay visible longer, and appear to more friends and subscribers. Otherwise, they won't stand out from other messages in a friend's news feed so it won't be obvious that you're hooking for eyeballs.

The listen-to-me-I-paid-for-this feature stems from recent analyses that show that only of a member's friends actually see their status updates. By the way, businesses don't do much better on the social network. Only 16 percent of their posts are seen by their followers.

Is this latest play to milk money from its members a sign of what we can expect in the future from the social network? This is the kind of stuff -- like job layoffs -- designed to appeal to investors. Once it becomes a with a $90 billion market cap, should we expect it to dream up new ways to nickel and dime its members to death? Stay tuned.

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