On Thursday, Facebook announced a major redesign of its News Feed. This redesign is the first major change to the News Feed since Facebook came into existence.
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement, “News Feed is one of the most important services that we build.”
The most noticeable change is that content and pictures will be bigger. Users will also be able to choose different versions of the News Feed they are viewing, by switching between options such as photos, all friends, most recent, etc. Facebook said the idea behind the different versions of the News Feed is to give users more control over what they are seeing.
Personally, I think this change could mean the end of seeing endless updates from “that person you met once four years ago.” Of course, you could just un-friend those people, but the advantage of having several friends is it provides a way to keep connections, even if you are unsure of when you may want to use them.
Facebook representatives said that more than 70 employees have been working on the redesign for more than a year, but they understand that users may be apprehensive to change at first. This means that only a small portion of Facebook users currently have the redesigned News Feed.
One other question I have is how the changes will affect brand pages. If users are given more control over what they are seeing, does that mean they will be able to get rid of ads and brand content? That could pose a serious challenge to marketers.