10:47 AM PST posted by
awashburn
10:46 AM PST posted by
Alexandra Chang
And that’s a wrap, everyone.
10:45 AM PST posted by
awashburn
10:44 AM PST posted by
awashburn
10:43 AM PST posted by
awashburn
10:43 AM PST posted by
Alexandra Chang
Question: Right now the News Feed is similar for everyone. Everybody feels like they are in this Town Square across the globe. How is this going to change now that people are going to have different experiences? Will it make people feel more separate because they have different experiences from their friends?
A: Zuckerberg says, no, it just allows people to dig deeper. “We’re still optimizing to show everyone the things that we think are important for them… We have the highest rate of retention, 60-percent of people who use Facebook come back… But people miss things if it’s just a constant feed of everything.” For example, Zuckerberg says that you want to have the most important stuff on the front page. Then they have a chance to dig into other stuff in the new, content-specific feeds.
10:42 AM PST posted by
awashburn
10:41 AM PST posted by
awashburn
10:40 AM PST posted by
awashburn
10:40 AM PST posted by
Alexandra Chang
And now a question from Mike Isaac on Instagram and whether it will be treated differently from other posts. Zuckerberg answers that Instagram will be treated the same as other apps using Open Graph. “There can be all these different social apps… Just like there are different feeds here that focus on specific types of content… But I think that there’s this important and special place in the world for a personalized newspaper… The Instagram thing is really interesting because we have this great opportunity to build relationships with other companies… The things that we do with Instagram will help us build better experiences for the whole ecosystem of Facebook apps.”
In short, no Instagram won’t be treated differently from other Facebook-connected apps.
10:38 AM PST posted by
awashburn
10:37 AM PST posted by
Alexandra Chang
On the Music feed: Cox says that it has helped him discover new music. “One of the things you’ll start to see if you use that, you’ll see upcoming shows… It’s really, really sweet.”
10:37 AM PST posted by
Alexandra Chang
Now a question on Pages. Could you elaborate on Pages?
“Pages publish. The following feed will have everything from pages and public figures you follow,” Cox says. But this isn’t going to affect actual Pages. It’s just a News Feed redesign.
10:35 AM PST posted by
Alexandra Chang
A reporter from Inside Facebook points out that this isn’t the first time that Facebook has done this. Asking why what were the reasons before for removing that and going back to it. Cox says that now there is a lot more content in the system compared to several years ago. “It has a lot to do with the ecosystem that we’re operating in,” he says.
10:34 AM PST posted by
Alexandra Chang
Now someone is asking a question about whether they think that people will use these different types of specific News Feeds. Cox laughs, says, “Yes, we think that people will use them.” He says that this is based on feedback from users. “We’ve tried to make these really nice and prominent and frictionless.”
10:33 AM PST posted by
Alexandra Chang
Next, a question on algorithms. “We’re not changing anything about the ranking algorithm that we have.”
10:33 AM PST posted by
Alexandra Chang
First up: Advertisement. How does the new design impact ads going forward? Julie Zhuo says that the new design is all about making content richer and more immersive. That goes across the board for everything, including ads. Everything across the board will get richer and more immersive.
So ads that are way more embedded? I wonder how we will be able to tell the difference between ads and stories then?
10:31 AM PST #
Now it’s time for questions!
10:31 AM PST posted by
Alexandra Chang
A summary of the three core features of the new News Feed: Richer story design, different cuts of your feed, and a consistent feel across devices. This will start rolling out on the web today at facebook.com/newsfeed
“Because this is a big change on the web, we’re going to be slow and careful about the web,” Cox says. So don’t expect to see if on your News Feed immediately. Cox says that they want to get feedback from a small number of users first and then go from there for a larger rollout. Considering how slowly Timeline and Graph Search have been rolling out, it’s no surprise that the News Feed will roll out slowly as well.
10:30 AM PST posted by
awashburn
10:29 AM PST posted by
Alexandra Chang
The nice thing about the new feeds in News Feed is that they let you focus on what you want to focus on depending on the time that you have, Cox says. On mobile, you can just look at what your closest friends are saying. But when you have more time, say on a tablet or PC, you can explore more of the other feeds.
10:28 AM PST posted by
awashburn
10:27 AM PST posted by
Alexandra Chang
Now we’re onto mobile. “A lot of what you’re seeing here is a very mobile-inspired web design,” Chris Cox, VP of Product, says. The desktop version of Facebook is now consistent to the mobile experience. “The first is that it’s truly global navigation,” Cox says. You don’t have to navigate back to the home page to get to other pages on Facebook.
10:26 AM PST posted by
awashburn
10:25 AM PST posted by
Alexandra Chang
As expected, the Photos functions much like Facebook’s Camera app. There’s also a “Following” feed, where you can see every single post from pages and public figures that you like. This addresses the heat the site got from people like George Takei and Mark Cuban, who claimed that Pages posts were getting suppressed in the News Feed.
There’s now a feed that makes sure you get EVERY SINGLE post that your friends and Pages you’ve liked are posting. That way you know that there’s an option out there that shows you everything that’s going on, much like a Twitter feed.
10:24 AM PST posted by
awashburn
10:22 AM PST posted by
Alexandra Chang
“Sometimes you want to see every event that my friends are going to. Or every photo my friends are uploading. Or all the music my friends are listening to… Now you have more control over which of these feeds you see on your homepage… You can jump to any one of these feeds using the switcher at the top right of the page.”
10:21 AM PST posted by
Alexandra Chang
Now Chris Struhar, Facebook Tech Lead, is here to talk about choice of feeds that users will now have access to. “We really heard from people that they wanted more choice and more control over the stories that they were seeing on their homepage,” Struhar says.
10:21 AM PST posted by
awashburn
10:20 AM PST posted by
Alexandra Chang
The newly designed News Feed will start rolling out today.
10:19 AM PST posted by
Alexandra Chang
The News Feed will also highlight events and news from Pages. Zhuo is showing off a feature that shows the most shared articles of NPR. There is also a feature where you can see stories about people who you have “Liked.” Zhuo is showing that you can see articles about Taylor Swift, or a sports team, that you like.
10:18 AM PST posted by
Alexandra Chang
When a lot of your friends share the same thing, the News Feed will bring it front and foremost. You can see all of the faces of your friends who have shared the content. You can hover over their profile pictures and see what they said about the things that they shared.
10:15 AM PST posted by
Alexandra Chang
Julie Zhuo, Director of Design is taking the stage. News Feed is less than 40 percent of Facebook’s current Home Page. That’s going to change. It comes down to stories, and making stories on News Feed shine. “They say a picture is worth 1000 words, and today’s design is more like 500,” Zhuo says.
Photos get bigger in the new design. Attachments from links also get more space, “to shine,” according to Julie Zhuo, Director of Design. A much larger image, a more prominent title, and a longer summary accompany a linked story. The new design also brings users’ Timelines to the News Feed. Say, for example, when your friends are adding a new friend, you can see more about that person directly in the News Feed.
10:11 AM PST posted by
Alexandra Chang
Zuckerberg is showing off the new design of News Feed. At the top is a giant video. The left-hand column in the desktop is gone. There are three areas that it focuses on: Rich feeds, choice of feeds, and mobile consistency. You get the same experience on desktop and mobile.
10:10 AM PST posted by
awashburn
10:10 AM PST posted by
Alexandra Chang
Zuckerberg says that News Feed has primarily become about visual content. More than half of the News Feed has become about photos. The amount of content from Pages has also increased, from less than 20 percent to close to 30 percent. News Feed needs to evolve with this evolving shift in content.
10:09 AM PST posted by
Alexandra Chang
“There’s no other social service like this at scale,” Zuckerberg says. “I really think that there’s a special place in the world for the personalized newspaper…”
10:08 AM PST posted by
Alexandra Chang
Zuckerberg is showing off an early version of News Feed. “From the beginning, our goal with News Feed was different from any other social service was trying to provide… You should be able to share any content that you want. Status updates, links, photos, etc… You should be able to share with any audience that you want, publicly, with the world, with just friends, or privately.”
10:07 AM PST posted by
Alexandra Chang
“What we’re trying to do is to give everyone in the world is to give them the best personal newspaper that we can… We believe that the best personal newspaper should have a broad diversity of content… It should enable you to drill into any topic you want to discuss,” Zuckerberg says. “We also believe that the best personalized newspaper should be rich… should be displayed with more than text.”
10:06 AM PST posted by
Alexandra Chang
Mark Zuckerberg has taken the stage. “News Feed is one of the most important services that we build. It takes all of the things your friends are doing and puts it all in one place.”
10:02 AM PST posted by
awashburn
Can you tell we’re all super excited?
9:57 AM PST posted by
Alexandra Chang
We’re live at the Facebook News Feed event right now, just minutes away from the reveal. We’ll have all of the news, quotes and photos coming soon!
Will Facebook’s users like the company’s new News Feed? Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired
MENLO PARK, California — It’s time for another Facebook event! This time the company is set to reveal a revamped look for News Feed.
Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg has called News Feed, the social giant’s main method of browsing status updates and Facebook activity, one of the three pillars of the company’s ecosystem. It’s also the last to get a facelift.
The other two pillars are brand spanking new. Timeline was introduced in December 2011, with roll-outs throughout 2012, and Graph Search just came out this January. News Feed is showing its age, however. It launched more than six years ago and has been relatively unchanged. On the desktop site, News Feed appears as a central column that shows updates from Facebook friends and Pages you’ve liked. It has become increasingly status- and photo-focused, whereas when it first launched it showed much more activity-based information, such as somebody adding a friend, liking a page or changing their relationship status.
Facebook certainly could make News Feed even more image-based, and there are reports the mobile version will do away with the classic blue-and-white chrome. The company also could introduce new content-specific feeds. Take, for example, Facebook’s Camera app, which shows only photo-related updates. The same could come to the company’s desktop and mobile News Feeds. It’s likely that Facebook will detail new News Feed’s advertising and revenue models, such as video ads and more incorporated advertising in the feed.
The social networking giant has explained that it continues to change its algorithm to determine what surfaces on users’ News Feeds. But it has come under recent attack for its Promoted Posts program and whether the site is not suppressesing non-promoted posts. Facebook will likely address these issues during the event as well.
We’ll be live from Menlo Park starting 10 a.m. PST on Thursday with all the updates.
