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Facebook's News Feed is gentler on your flaky phone connection
Facebook might depend on the internet, but the social network knows that people don't always have good internet connections. You may be knocked offline in a subway tunnel, or live in a part of the world where fast internet access is rare. The company should soon have your back, though. It's testing a mobile News Feed update that sees which stories are already on your phone, and shows the ones you haven't seen based on relevance. On top of that, the test will periodically grab new stories while you have a good connection -- ideally, you'll always have something fresh to read.
Facebook 'Music Stories' preview Apple Music and Spotify tracks
In its on-going quest to make the sharing of things easier, Facebook has a new way to tell others what your listening to. The new feature, or post format, is called Music Stories. Instead of posting a link to the song or album you're listening to, Music Stories offer a 30-second clip from either Apple Music or Spotify. There's an option to continue listening via the streaming service the song or album was shared from, too. And you'll have the choice of making a purchase from iTunes (for Apple Music) or saving the tracks for listening later as well. While only two streaming options are supported right now, Facebook says its looking to add more services in the future. Based on rumblings about the social network's audio aspirations, we surmise this is only the start of having more music in your News Feed. Music Stories are only available on the Facebook iPhone app starting today, and there's no word on when/if they'll arrive on Android and other versions of the software.
Facebook expands search to all 2 trillion of its posts
Facebook announced on Thursday that it will expand its search function to include every publically-available post in its archive, not just those of your friends and liked Pages. But this won't simply be a firehose of information, Facebook will reportedly segregate and stack results depending on the source.
Your Facebook News Feed speed now depends on your connection
To better accommodate its users in emerging markets, many of whom only have access to 2G signal, Facebook announced a number of improvements to News Feed on Tuesday. In short, the news services has been revamped to ensure that it loads efficiently, regardless of network speed or the model of device being used. So if you're trying to load News Feed from a flip phone on a shaky connection, the service will push fewer video posts (which wouldn't load anyway) in favor of more status updates and link posts.
Facebook's 360-degree videos bring immersive content to your News Feed
Always trying new things to improve your News Feed browsing, Facebook now supports more immersive videos. The social network announced that 360 video will begin rolling out to that portion of the site today. Right now, they're only viewable on the web and Android with support for iOS "in the coming months." The more immersive videos on Facebook work similarly to what you've probably seen on YouTube. As the footage plays, you can use your cursor to click and move around the video on the desktop. With a mobile device, you can use your finger to navigate around the visuals or you can simply move the device itself to change perspective. This new addition also paves the way for VR content to hit the News Feed when devices like the Oculus Rift and PS VR head to consumers.
Facebook figures if you listened to a video, you must like it
Facebook continues to refine what you see in your news feed. Today, the social network that your mom uses announced that it will track more information about your video watching habits to include whether or not you perform any actions like turn up the volume or make a video full screen. Facebook will use that information to place what it believes are more relevant auto-playing videos into your feed. Facebook recently announced that it would track how long users look at posts in addition to when someone clicks the Like or Share button to aggregate posts. Today's news is just an extension of that. The company says it will roll out this new way to weight posts in user feeds over the coming weeks and that Pages shouldn't expect "significant changes in distribution as a result of this update."
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 tweaks your newsfeed by how long you read each post
In an unsurprising revelation, it turns out your Facebook news feed is watching you almost as much as you watch it. The Menlo Park-based company announced today that it is "improving" its news feature by taking into account not just whether someone liked or commented on an article but also by how much time they spent reading it. "Just because someone didn't like, comment or share a story in their News Feed doesn't mean it wasn't meaningful to them," Facebook explains."There are times when, for example, people want to see information about a serious current event, but don't necessarily want to like or comment on it."
Facebook: If your feed is an echo chamber, you need more friends
Facebook wants you to know that you've only got yourself to blame for the lack of diversity in views on your News Feed. The social network has recently conducted a study to find out why people mostly see posts that mirror their own beliefs and to find out if a "filter bubble" is to blame. "Filter bubble" is what you call the situation wherein a website's algorithm shows only posts based on what you clicked (or Liked) and commented on. For this particular study, the company used anonymous data from 10.1 million Facebook users who list their political affiliations on their profiles. Researchers monitored "hard news" links posted on the website and looked at whether they were posted by conservatives, liberals or moderates.
Facebook tweaks its News Feed to show you more from your friends
If you're like me, your News Feed on Facebook is filled with just as much content from brands as it is updates about your classmate's vacation. Based on feedback, the folks in Menlo Park are changing the way it handles updates from your pals. Posts made directly by your friends will now display closer to the top of the News Feed -- things like status updates, pictures, videos and more. Thankfully, you'll also see less of the notifications about a friend liking or commenting on another post, too. Facebook is relaxing the rule that prevented you from seeing multiple items in a row from the same person as well, so if you're after more from people and not companies, you should start seeing an increase in those posts soon. The social network announced an effort to cut down on the number of hoaxes in your feed earlier a couple months ago, so the next round of tweaks can't be far off.
Facebook's AI can see inside your videos and posts
Facebook connects people, but it also wants to know them so it can show relevant information and targeted ads to them. To generate a personalized feed for each user, the network needs to identify and classify content in posts, images and news. Towards that end, the company launched an ambitious AI plan, and a research laboratory, at the end of 2013. Today at F8, its annual developer's conference, the network's CTO Mike Schroepfer talked about a specific AI prototype that can identify content in videos and the context of words. While AI for video can identify 487 types of sport activities, another reads sentences to pinpoint possessives from the grammar used. This allows the company to sift through an overwhelming load of information so it can arrive at a newsfeed that's most appropriate for the user. It's unclear if the new system is already peeking through posts, but Schroepfer indicated that over the next 10 years, Facebook will focus on building advanced AI systems.
Facebook wants to save you a click by hosting other sites' content
As if Facebook couldn't get any bigger, it's looking like The Social Network wants to start natively hosting content from news organizations. As The New York Times' sources tell it, Zuckerberg and Co. have been in talks with at least six media companies about publishing their content directly on the site -- no link-clicking required. The initial round of publications apparently includes The New York Times, Buzzfeed, National Geographic and our sister publication The Huffington Post. The reason? Websites take too long to load, and Facebook says that on mobile, the average eight-second page-load is too much. Of course, the outfit has a vested interest in mobile, hence it stepping in.
Facebook is clamping down on the number of hoaxes in your News Feed
Sure, I've clicked on a link from Facebook only to discover it was a hoax. Don't judge me. In an effort to waste a bit less of your time when perusing that News Feed, though, the social network will flag posts that other users say are untrue. Content that gets flagged or deleted will get reduced visibility in that rundown of goings-on -- including links, photos, videos, and status updates. If you see something fishy, you can report it as false just like you mark tweets for spam on Twitter. And if the item in question draws enough scrutiny, a line of warning text will appear above it in the feed. In case you're wondering, Facebook says users tend to give obvious satire a pass, so if you're a fan of that, don't expect those posts to be affected.
Facebook will filter out excessively promotional Page posts in 2015
Facebook is thankfully taking more steps to show fewer spammy posts on your News Feed -- and we're not talking about traditional web ads. We're talking about overly promotional status updates posted by Page accounts, like the ones you can see after the break. The social network promised to bury "like-bait" posts (of the "1 Like = 1 Prayer" type) underneath more relevant content earlier this year, and now it's doing the same thing to Page statuses that fall under any of these criteria: Posts that solely push people to buy a product or install an app Posts that push people to enter promotions and sweepstakes with no real context Posts that reuse the exact same content from ads
Facebook makes it easier to hide your annoying friends' posts
If you've just about had enough of those annoying online quizzes you keep seeing on Facebook, well the social network has just introduced a new way for you to stop seeing them. Now when you select to hide a story (which you can do by hitting the arrow on the top right), you can also request to see less from that person or Page. Or, if you so choose, you can unfollow them entirely. Additionally, there's also a new News Feed setting that'll show you the top people, Pages and Groups that have popped up in your feed in the past week. You can then unfollow them if you want, or re-follow the folks that you've unfollowed in the past. Both features are available on desktop today. As for mobile, the latter News Feed setting is ready today, while the former "see less" feature will be available in coming weeks. Thankfully, even after you've unfollowed your buddy's posts, your Facebook friendship will still remain intact.
Facebook fights clickbait articles, you won't believe what happens next
Never mind ads -- one of the biggest annoyances on Facebook is the endless wave of clickbait articles, whose over-the-top headlines trick you into reading forgettable stories. Thankfully, the social network is as tired of this fluff as you are; it's changing the News Feed to prioritize stories that you really want to see. Facebook will now check to see how quickly you come back to its site after clicking a link, and whether or not you like or comment on the related post when you return. If many people quickly give up on a clickbait piece, your feed will downplay that story in favor of more substantial fare. Facebook is also prioritizing links shared in its preview-friendly official format, so you should have a better sense of what articles contain before you jump in. It won't be surprising if purveyors of puffed-up headlines eventually find a workaround, but the signal-to-noise ratio in your social stream will hopefully improve in the near future.
Facebook explains why it briefly toyed with users' emotions
Ever since word got out that Facebook had briefly manipulated some users' News Feeds to see how their feelings changed, a number of questions have popped up: just why did the company feel compelled to experiment in the first place? How noticeable was it? And was it worth the effort? As of today, we have some answers to those riddles. Study co-author Adam Kramer explains that Facebook was worried people would stop visiting the social network if they saw too many emotional updates -- a lot of negative posts could scare some people off, while a surge of positive vibes would leave others feeling left out. That's not what happened, however, and Kramer stresses that the company "never [meant] to upset anyone."
Facebook experiment proves that social networks can alter your mood
Before you begin stalking a frenemy's tragic life on Facebook to feel a sense of schadenfreude, know this: that depression could rub off on you. At least that's the conclusion Facebook's researches came up with when they turned 689,000 users into guinea pigs for seven days, gaming what they could see on their News Feeds to see if it influences their moods. According to a paper recently published in PNAS, the social network used software to identify positive and negative words in status updates and to segregate posts into the two categories. Facebook then massaged the subjects' News Feeds to show mostly positive or negative posts. In the end, the company's researchers proved that emotions can be contagious even without direct contact on social networks, and even if you're only reading words on a screen.
Facebook will no longer share all of your activity by default
Facebook revoked Instagram's auto-posting credentials recently, and it looks like the social network is going a lot further than it's own properties. After noticing that links and other activity shared by knowingly tapping the blue "F" button garner more interest, Zuckerberg & Co. are scaling back the amount of automatically-posted content that shows up in the News Feed. Facebook will give preference to those items in its regularly updated rundown, which means less stuff from third-party apps will pop up in the days to come. However, as The Verge reports, those auto-posts will still populate areas of your profile dedicated to them -- such as track-by-track Spotify activity and the like -- and will still be used for targeted ads. The move follows last month's announcement that the folks in Menlo Park were cracking down on spam in its News Feed, but we'd surmise sponsored posts are staying put.
Facebook scrapped last year's redesign because your screen is too small
When Facebook scrapped the picture-heavy News Feed redesign from last spring in favor of a more conservative look, it briefly touched on screen size as a factor. As it turns out, displays played a more important role in the reversal than you might think. The company's Julie Zhuo explains that the hyper-visual layout fell apart on netbooks and other small-screened PCs -- you might only see one post at a time, and scrolling was a pain without the right mouse or trackpad. While the early 2013 feed would have boosted Facebook's revenue, it wasn't going to fly when the social network has to please hundreds of millions of users that seldom have access to big displays.
