Dressed in his trademark hoodie and jeans, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg took the stage today to unveil the social networking giant's new News Feed, which has been overhauled to reflect the new ways in which people are using the site.
"Our mission is to make the world more open and connected," said Zuckerberg in his opening remarks. "What we're trying to do is give everyone in the world the best personalized newspaper... it should have socially and locally relevant updates... let you drill into any topic you discuss, that you want to go over."
He went on to explain that one of the reasons for the change was the change in which people were using the site. He noted that since News Feed launched, the percentage of posts that re photos has nearly doubled, to just less than half of all posts.
He then turned over the floor to Director of Design Julie Zhou, who explained that the focus on News Feed came about because everyone they talked to told them, "This is what matters to me, these are thing that my friends are saying and seeing and doing."
Seven years after Facebook launched their News Feed to almost universal scorn, that river of updates, photos, info and ads has become what people think of when they think of Facebook.You're sure to hate it--until you forget what the old one looked like.
There had already been plenty of leaks and sneak peeks, thanks in large part to an early launch of the News Feed in New Zealand. In addition to shuffling things around a bit, they've bumped up photo sizes.
Not only are photos bigger, but galleries are now more prominent, with one photo featured, and thumbnails of others below. And the profile photos of people your friends have friended in your News Feed are now bigger, too.
When you check in somewhere, your post will now include a map and a description of the place.
Third-party apps will get a better treatment, as they too will have bigger photos. Will work for texts or images, too.
We'll be tracking more changes as they're revealed, but here's what we're looking for:
Like most people, you're probably unaware that you actually already have multiple News Feeds available. Facebook has three feeds available, in addition to the main news feed: "Pages" went live in October, "Music" has been around since 2011, and "My Offers" went live about a week ago. But they're hard to find on both the desktop and mobile versions of the site. With today's announcement, expect Facebook to put some or all of these feeds, as well as a Photos feed, up top where they can be easily accessed.
Among the mostly cosmetic changes expected:
- The toolbar that runs along the bottom of the cover photo and links to "Timeline," "About," "Friends," "Photos" and "More" (without the thumbnail photos Facebook now uses)
- "Map" and "Likes" pushed further down the page
- A new "About" widget directly below the profile picture
- "Likes" on the left-hand side of the News Feed page
- "Notes" in a new prominent place on the left-hand side of the News Feed page, no longer buried beneath a dropdown menu
- "Photos" in a 3x3 tile on the left-hand side of the News Feed page
- Bigger photos and ads
- A "Like" button accompanying links to other sites that you like the site itself
One other thing to look for is a change to the algorithm that determines what shows up in your News Feed. At some point in the past few months, people began suspecting a change that it makes it harder for companies and public figures to get their posts to appear in their followers' News Feed unless they pay for it.
But don't hold your breath. Facebook's last big announcement came in January, with the launch of "Graph Search" (which has been met with an indifferent shrug) and nothing was said then.