Facebook getting ready to change News Feed
NEW YORK (AP) — Amid chatter of "Facebook fatigue," real or imagined, the world's biggest social networking company is getting ready to unveil a new version of News Feed, the flow of status updates, photos and advertisements its users see on the site.
Facebook Inc. is hosting an event at its Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters on Thursday to show off "a new look for News Feed." The company offered no other details on what the changes will be in an invitation sent to journalists and bloggers. It will be Facebook's second staged event at its headquarters since the company's May initial public offering. The company unveiled a search feature at the first one in January.
If past site changes are any indication, the News Feed tweaks may take some getting used to and will likely lead to user grumbles. Facebook users often complain about changes to the site, whether it's cosmetic tweaks or the overhaul of privacy settings.
Gartner analyst Brian Blau says one change he'd like to see from Facebook as a user is the ability to control how much he's seeing from the businesses and other non-friend accounts he follows. Currently users can only tweak how much they see from their friends, not from businesses they follow.
"We have a 'like' but there is no degree of 'like,' it's binary," he says. "I need a 'like plus' or even a 'like minus.'"
The event comes a month after a Pew study reported that many Facebook users take a break from the site for weeks at a time. The report, from the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project, found that some 61 percent of Facebook users had taken a hiatus for reasons that range from boredom to too much irrelevant information to Lent.
Overall, though, Facebook's user base is growing, especially on mobile devices. At last count it had 1.06 billion active monthly accounts. The number of people who access Facebook daily is also on the rise.
That said, even the company has acknowledged that some of its users, especially the younger ones, are migrating to substitutes, but so far this has not meant an overall decline in user numbers.
"For example, we believe that some of our users have reduced their engagement with Facebook in favor of increased engagement with other products and services such as Instagram," the company said last month in the "risk factors" of its annual 10-K filing. "In the event that our users increasingly engage with other products and services, we may experience a decline in user engagement and our business could be harmed."
Facebook owns Instagram, but so far it has not shown any ads on it.
Facebook Inc. is hosting an event at its Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters on Thursday to show off "a new look for News Feed." The company offered no other details on what the changes will be in an invitation sent to journalists and bloggers. It will be Facebook's second staged event at its headquarters since the company's May initial public offering. The company unveiled a search feature at the first one in January.
If past site changes are any indication, the News Feed tweaks may take some getting used to and will likely lead to user grumbles. Facebook users often complain about changes to the site, whether it's cosmetic tweaks or the overhaul of privacy settings.
Gartner analyst Brian Blau says one change he'd like to see from Facebook as a user is the ability to control how much he's seeing from the businesses and other non-friend accounts he follows. Currently users can only tweak how much they see from their friends, not from businesses they follow.
"We have a 'like' but there is no degree of 'like,' it's binary," he says. "I need a 'like plus' or even a 'like minus.'"
The event comes a month after a Pew study reported that many Facebook users take a break from the site for weeks at a time. The report, from the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project, found that some 61 percent of Facebook users had taken a hiatus for reasons that range from boredom to too much irrelevant information to Lent.
Overall, though, Facebook's user base is growing, especially on mobile devices. At last count it had 1.06 billion active monthly accounts. The number of people who access Facebook daily is also on the rise.
That said, even the company has acknowledged that some of its users, especially the younger ones, are migrating to substitutes, but so far this has not meant an overall decline in user numbers.
"For example, we believe that some of our users have reduced their engagement with Facebook in favor of increased engagement with other products and services such as Instagram," the company said last month in the "risk factors" of its annual 10-K filing. "In the event that our users increasingly engage with other products and services, we may experience a decline in user engagement and our business could be harmed."
Facebook owns Instagram, but so far it has not shown any ads on it.
Leave ads out of the news feed or else ...
@Komo Dragon Or else you're going to quit their "free" service?
@Stock Woodie @Komo Dragon lol
I've complained for years about the scourge to commerce that is Lent. Finally, vindication.
Hey DT....Go to your friends page, click on the friends block on top of their page, go to setting, and check all updates. Now you will get all their updates. Hope this will help you.Â
Facebook has tweaked itself into oblivion.  THey need to stop trying to figure out what you want to see, and truly let your controls WORK.  I have so many friends and family who I've indicated I'd like to get their updates, and I then assume they're not posting, because they don't show up in the feed.  But they have been posting.. I'm just not seeing it.  I have biz pages that I like and have subscribed to, and they show up. But the rest of the biz pages are hidden under "pages" on the left.  Now, spammy ads for "lower my interest rate" or the latest fake Dr. OZ diet, show up in my news feed, where my friend's should be  Â
They need to go back to the start and simplify everything. Stop trying to guess what we want to see. Â
I imagine that the "news feed" for lack of a better Facebook term is not producing enough revenue so they want to find a way to slam more ads in our faces like KOMO is doing with its recent increase in banner ads on this "News Site" for lack of a better term. Read a recent article on user response to ads being force fed to site users by web site companies slamming in users' faces such as banner ads on this site and ads that come of nowhere and cover the entire screen such as done on Yahoo from time to time. There is a growing distaste, i.e. users refusing to click on such belligerent means of advertising, kind of like these irritating animated billboards along I-5 near Fife and Tacoma. As for Facebook, it is growing tedious to the point of time to move on down the social web line.
@growlerxrunner Facebook and Komo and FREE. Not your complaining. If you don't like it, go somewhere else. On the other hand, if you were a "paying" customer, the company should listen to your whining.
@Stock Woodie@growlerxrunnerFree? Only a fool believes anything comes without a price. You pay with Facebook mining your information to sell to companies so they can take advantage of a user's weakness and susceptibility to buying goods that one may or may not need. A user's information trail is long and virtually endless and could end in the hands of those who would mine your credit via fraud as well. And do you think for a minute that Facebook or these companies care about you or your privacy?  What a joke. As for poor Facebook, they made a profit of 1.1 billion and earned a tax rebate of over 400 million. So Facebook is free? Yea, right.
@growlerxrunner @Stock Woodie Yes. They are free. You agree to this stuff in the "user agreement". Also, you can put as "little" information online as you choose (ie NAME only). Try to sell "your" information to someone and see how much you get.... nothing.
 Buying something I may not need? Sounds like a personal problem to me.
Duh.
@Stock Woodie @growlerxrunner Facebook is NOT free.  They made their billions by selling your personal info.  It's not exactly a public service.Â
@oledawg @DT @Stock Woodie @growlerxrunnerOk here's your question regarding Facebook.  Who built Facebook ?
@DT @Stock Woodie @growlerxrunner How much do you pay Facebook?  It's free for me.
@DT @Stock Woodie @growlerxrunner It's free. How much do you pay facebook every month, every year? Nothing (unless you're buying things). Selling your personal info is part of the user agreement. If you don't like it, don't sign up for FREE.
My only friends are people that I actually know. I have my privacy setting set so I get nothing from people I don't know. I don't play any of their games because that seems to be where they mine the data from you.Â
Im one of these bored facebook users. The only reason I am on it now is because people no longer pick up the phone and call or text about anything, so if I want to find out about anything it is through facebook. The regular posts with photos about the pizza someone made for dinner last night, and the obligatory "likes" and "happy birthday!" is pretty tired.
@northwestsurfer Totally agree. I would dump FB altogether, but it's the one place where I can contact my far flung friends and family.  Most often I just use it to chat with family across the Country.  People don't post that much anymore about random things...  For me it's like a living address book.  I wish that people would use the phone, email, or even text, anymore, but you're right that they don't.  It's getting to the point now, where hitting "like" is about all people will do anymore. Â
@DT @northwestsurfer I'd get rid of my phone, but I use it. I'd get rid of insurance, but I need it just in case. I'd get rid of cable, but I love the discovery channel. Give me a break. You're complaining about "wishing poeple would use the phone", yet you don't either. Start a trend.
@DT @northwestsurfer I find I get more messages through facebook than email or texts anymore, and I have no problem with it, it's really all the same for me since it's all accessed from the same device.
Ugh. Just show all the things I've "liked" and all of the updates from my friends, in reverse-chronological order! It's not hard!
Facebook: a website developed to gather your eyeballs and information sell them to advertisers for between $100 to $115 per set of eyeballs. Â It is a data mining site that sells your information for $$$. Â Nothing more and nothing less.
I can't wait for all the facebook addicts to start crying all over the internet.  Waaaa, they changed facebook again. Â
If you use Adblock Plus, you can block all the ads on facebook.
I wasn't aware that this was available and the adds drive me nuts. How do you get Adblock?
@panda bear http://adblockplus.org/en/chrome this is for chrome i searched google to find it
@Cara @panda bearÂ
The problem is Adblock blocks everything, I had a problem with that so I switched to "Ghostery" for blocking, it is a much better ad-blocking program, you choose what you want to block, and it is easier than Adblock to get answers if something goes wrong.
I love Adblock!  I rarely see adds or get popups.  I just wish they had it on my work computer too.Â