(Update 15/Oct: Aaaaaaand, it’s gone. No more views counts :) Let’s see how many years this takes to be fully implemented. If at all.)
I’m not sure if I’m in a test group or something to that effect, but this morning (14/Oct) I’m seeing a views counter in almost all posts, both from Pages (that I don’t control), as well as personal posts of mine and of friends. Interestingly, each “item” (photo, shared link) has it’s own view count. This means that a views count on a shared post is actually the views count of all shares of the item, across everyone who shared it.
A short search on Google did not find any news articles about this. If it’s more than a test, it will be extremely useful for people doing personal branding without a Page but rather through a personal profile.
It would be interesting in the following cases:
1) People with both a personal profile and an official page: they can now compare numbers between the two and add it in their analysis
2) Since you can also see views counts of the Pages / Profiles of your competitors. It’s like taking a glimpse at their Google Analytics accounts :)
Of course Google+ and Twitter have had these kind of analytics exposed to users for some time now, although not directly displayed on the posts feed.
I’m currently seeing this on mobile (web not app) only. Have you seen this on your end?