Starting last Tuesday, Facebook began introducing some new features to help them stay ahead of Twitter and Google+. There’s a lot of controversy as to if these changes are good or bad. Instead of joining that debate, we thought it might be better to provide a non-biased description of what has changed.
- “Subscribe” Button
- Very much like Twitter’s “Follow” feature; allows you to keep tabs on certain friends more than others.
- News Ticker
- Similar to the Timeline on Twitter, showing a live feed of updates. This lets users see their friend’s posts as they happen.
- Similar to the Timeline on Twitter, showing a live feed of updates. This lets users see their friend’s posts as they happen.
- Friend Filters
- Similar to Circles on the somewhat new Google+, helps users organize their friends news feeds based on these filters.
- Larger Pictures
- Thumbnail pictures on the news feed are larger, and shown in a block of three making them easier to see and more visually appealing.
- “Top Stories”
- A small, blue indicator is put in the corner of the posts that Facebook thinks will be most interesting to you, personalizing the news feed.
- Facebook has also stated that they are going to manipulate the feeds to show you what they think is most relevant to what you want to see based off your past browsing trends.
- “Timeline”
- A more efficient way to share and display older posts, keeping them from falling off your wall forever. More to come on this in future posts.
- Follow this link for more information on the Facebook Timeline.
The importance of these changes is that the Facebook has not stopped working on their product. Facebook is trying to make the user’s experience better every time they log in, and these changes are designed to do just that.
Follow this link for official information on the Facebook Changes.
