Last week Facebook unveiled a new news feed with an entirely new look and feel. The rollout was to commence immediately and many users are currently using the first overhaul of the Timeline since the launch at the end of 2011.
“The news feed is one of the most important things we've built, said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg during the press event He added, “The stories around you deserve to be displayed with more than just text. How we're all sharing is changing and the news feed needs to evolve with those changes. This is the evolving face of news feed.”
Once you get access to the new feed you'll see bigger images, the ability to see multiple feeds and a mobile view consistent with the view on your desktop.
This is a huge change from the look over a billion people have become accustomed to. In response to the fact that photos currently make up 50% of the news feed, stories in your feed will focus on images which will appear much larger than they do now. Comparisons to Instagram and Google+ are in order.
As for the feed itself, users will have the ability to see more kinds of feeds and have more control over how those feeds appear on their screen. We'll be able to subscribe to different types of feeds, including feeds from all friends, close friends, music, photos, games and those who a user follows. This new news feed will have a consistent look and feel across all your mobile devices and be displayed in chronological order.
Some additional things you'll notice:
- Titles will randomly appear over your photos
- Your Likes will display by name and sometimes by number
- Posts will be longer as Facebook appears to have done away with the “more” link that currently appears when a friend has written a long status update.
If you don't already have access to the new News Feed you can get on the waiting list. Hard to say how long the wait will be, but once you've had a chance to see the new feed, let me know what you think.
