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YOUR FRIENDS' ACTIVITY

    Facebook decides which posts are ‘interesting’ to you

    By Jordan Bloom - The Daily Caller | The Daily Caller – Wed, Sep 21, 2011

    Another day, another Facebook home page redesign. According to Facebook engineering manager Mark Tonkelowitz, users this week were treated to a revamped news feed designed to make the user experience more like a newspaper — that is, Facebook will tell you which of your friends’ updates are worth reading.

    “When you pick up a newspaper after not reading it for a week, the front page quickly clues you into the most interesting stories. In the past, News Feed hasn’t worked like that,” Tonkelowitz writes. But now, “all your news will be in a single stream with the most interesting stories featured at the top.”

    The change sparked a flame war in comments on Tonkelowitz’ announcement, with most overwhelmingly opposed to the new system.

    “Lame. Quite frankly I don’t want Facebook deciding who is most important in my life. I want my news feed to just go chronologically and if I want to hide posts from someone, I will,” wrote one commenter, whose note drew more than 1,500 “likes” from other users.

    Other new features include a news ticker that displays updates in real-time — basically what a Facebook news feed used to do — and a new system for friends lists that seems to mimic the “circles” feature of Google+.

    That resemblance isn’t a coincidence. Though Google’s social networking site has failed to live up to its substantial pre-release hype, it was recently opened to the public for beta testing, which some analysts say is making Facebook nervous.

    Unlike Facebook’s “like” feature, Google “+1″s are displayed on Google’s results pages, and feed data back to Google which can personalize web surfers’ search results. Still, with millions of users already on Facebook, Google has an uphill battle to fight against existing benefits of social media that Facebook users will be reluctant to leave behind.

    All of these changes come on the cusp of Thursday’s “f8″ developer conference, where Facebook is expected to announce still more new features. Some possibilities include an iPad app, social video-watching or greater integration with Spotify and other music-streaming services.

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    2 comments

    • VerityBrown
      VerityBrown  •  8 mths ago
      I don't object to the change as much as I object to the fact that they've completely taken away the ability to see the News Feed in chronological order. Used to be able to click on "Most Recent" and everything would show up in order. Now that's not possible. While this new version may be useful for those who read Facebook only rarely, and are willing to trust Facebook to decide which posts are important, those of us who check several times a day to see what our friends are up to now have LESS functionality. The outcry I'm seeing among other Facebook users is like a tsunami. If Facebook doesn't restore the ability to see "Most Recent" posts, the temptation of Google+ is going to kill Facebook.
    • Staci
      Staci  •  8 mths ago
      Could we not even decide---give us a choice for pete's sake--if you want the classic one or the new one!!
     Post a comment
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