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Facebook tests a new tool to personalize your news feed
Last year Facebook debuted a very handy "muting" feature for its News Feed service that allowed users to stop receiving updates from specific people and pages without actually unfriending them. Today, Facebook has quietly begun testing a complimentary News Feed settings function that actively promotes specific content dubbed "See First". According to TechCrunch, users simply click on a friend or page's "following" button, then select "See First" from the subsequent menu to activate it.
Facebook brings bigger images and text to its news feed, because size does matter
Not long after hooking up its mobile site and apps with a minor facelift, Facebook's reportedly planning to bring a similar redesign to its full-sized website. According to our friends over at TechCrunch, the changes will be nearly identical to those we saw on the mobile front, meaning you'll be able see bigger photos (up to twice as large) and text pop up on your cherished news feed. The light, but plentiful revamp is expected to hit users over the next few days, so don't feel like the odd one out if you've yet to spot any tweaks. Now, if only you had that SimCity Social to help pass the time while you patiently wait...
Facebook lets advertisers easily buy mobile-only ads, our news feeds feel slightly unclean
Facebook's fistfuls of cash come almost exclusively from advertising, but virtually none of it comes from mobile. Much to its delight and our chagrin, that's changing. Prospective advertisers now only need to use the social network's ready-made ad interface and Power Editor to back a sponsored news feed story on mobile devices, instead of getting the explicit say-so from Facebook. It's not open season on Facebook's mobile apps: we won't see dating ads rear their pretty heads in Facebook Camera anytime soon. All the same, it does mean the social stream on your HTC Status will be a bit less than pristine from now on.
One more place to play Farmville or one more reason to quit Facebook?
Perhaps there aren't enough places for you to play Words With Friends or FrontierVille, who are we to judge? Maybe what the world needs right now is playable Angry Birds in your Facebook news feed. Instead of just an invitation to join Cow Clicker, maybe you need to be able to play it straight from the homepage. Well, now you can. And that's all we have to say about that.
Facebook adds real-time 'ticker' to overhauled news feed, donates old layout to science (video)
Facebook is about to turn your social life into an online newspaper. That's the takeaway from a new slate of changes the company unveiled yesterday, ahead of its annual f8 developer conference in San Francisco. From now on, if you log in to Facebook after a lengthy hiatus, your news feed -- much like the front page of a daily paper -- will consist of a list of "top stories," photos and updates that were posted while you were away, with each high-priority item tagged with a blue earmark. More frequent users, on the other hand, will find a list of most recent stories presented in chronological order, along with larger photos embedded directly within their news feed. The company has also introduced a new "ticker" feature that provides users with real-time updates on their friends' activity, displayed along the right-hand side of the home page. Here, you'll find the exact same updates you'd see on a real-time news feed, with the crucial difference being that you'll be able to interact with each development without missing a beat. If you see that a friend comments on a cat video, for example, you'll be able to click that item in the ticker and add your two cents, without having to navigate away from the home screen. Facebook will likely provide more details on these new features at its f8 tomorrow, but you can find more information in the demo video, after the break.
Facebook for iPhone can now change its news feed appearance instantly
The official Facebook client for the iPhone was updated recently and one salient change was an improved News feed. On the surface, the news feed changes appeared minimal, but behind the scenes Facebook re-worked the background mechanism that pulls in this status information. According to Inside Facebook, the iPhone client reportedly now pulls its News Feed information from Facebook's mobile website, m.facebook.com. This server-side mechanism lets the social network make changes to the News Feed without modifying a single line of code on the device. All changes can be made to the backend server and reflected on the iPhone instantly. This system lets Facebook update their app without pushing a new version through the App Store for approval and lets it respond to feature requests and complaints at a faster rate. Pretty cool, eh?
Get your notifications: experimental Mac app from Facebook
Mac-using Facebook fans are going to be happy to learn about Facebook's experimental Desktop Notifications app. Desktop Notifications sits in the menu bar, and pops up notifications (using Growl if you have it) when they occur. It also gives you quick access to your news feed, profile page, and quick ways to update your status or start a new Facebook email message. There are two things about Desktop Notifications that are compelling, yet have nothing to do with the app itself. The first is the fact that it's a native Mac application, rather than yet another Facebook client written on Adobe Air. The second is that it was actually developed by Facebook themselves [Update] Thanks to Raul and Nate for pointing out in the comments that the application is marked as "not developed by Facebook", though one of the developers listed works for Facebook. It's unclear at this point how serious this project is; it's clearly marked as experimental, which is clearly becoming the post-Gmail way of denoting that something is beta. In terms of raw functionality, Desktop Notifications is pretty barebones, since most of what it does is take you to a particular Facebook page. Personally I kind of like it that way. It's relatively light in terms of memory usage, and uses virtually no CPU cycles at all unless you are actively interacting with it, which is exactly what I want from a utility that is running all the time. My one beef is that the built-in hotkey that pops up a status update dialog box conflicts with another utility on my system, and there is no way to modify it. Since Desktop Notifications is still in the experimental stage, that's a pretty small complaint. [Update] Commenter Scott points out that there is a preference setting to change the hotkey. [via TechCrunch]
