SILICON VALLEY, CA – Facebook has managed to stir up a backlash against changes to its news feed rolled out Friday. The changes include showing users a selection of updates from their most popular friends when they first log on instead of all posts.
The company said it made the changes in hopes of making it easier to find information.
When you log in to Facebook you will see what the site deems the most interesting things that happened in the past day in the “News Feed.” These could be photos, status updates or other items.
As has been the case previously, what Facebook deems interesting to you will be based on what updates are popular with your friends or how close you are to the person giving the update.
“If the content has comments or ‘likes’ by 10 of your mutual friends, it’s something that is important to you,” said Peter Deng, a Facebook product manager.
After you’ve caught up, you can click back to the “Live Feed” you’ve had before and read updates from everyone on your friends list in a constant stream.
Some users are recommending that users change the number of live feed updates set by Facebook’s default to 5000 (no comma). This can be done by switching to live feed, then scrolling to the bottom of the page and hitting the edit options button.
In another change, Facebook is integrating its “Highlights” feature from the right hand side of the page to the “News Feed” in the middle. The space it frees up will be used to feature birthdays and events more prominently – something Facebook says users had asked for.
And the site is restoring some features it had gotten rid of, such as posts on when your friend adds a new friend or becomes a fan of a brand or a celebrity.
Many users have found this addition annoying.
“Nothing is going away,” Deng said. “We are just moving things around.”
Facebook has more than 300 million active users worldwide and about half of them log in every day.
The AP contributed to this story.
For a guide on changing your settings to avoid annoying your friends or having Facebook annoy you, see:
The Good, the Bad, The Backlash, from PC World:
http://bit.ly/48WqNG
Southeast Venture Conference, February 29 – March 1, 2012 at the Ritz Carlton in Tysons Corner, VA – Where Smart Money Meets Smart People.
www.seventure.org
© 2009, TechJournal South. All rights reserved.
