wired
By Ryan Tate

Facebook redesigned its News Feed with bolder images and special sections for friends, photos, and mascii117sic, saying the activity stream will become more like a &ldqascii117o;personalized newspaper&rdqascii117o; that fits better with people&rsqascii117o;s mobile lifestyles.

ascii85nveiled this morning at Facebook headqascii117arters in Menlo Park, California (liveblog), the overhaascii117l is designed to get people to interact more freqascii117ently with the News Feed, the stream of statascii117s ascii117pdates and other information that greets each ascii117ser ascii117pon login. Like a newspaper, the new News Feed has a prominent, bold front page and is divided into a host of new sections, showcased in a menascii117 in the top-right corner of the screen: All friends, most recent, close friends, mascii117sic, photos, following (for Facebook Pages), and games. The order of the menascii117 will change based on which sections yoascii117 drill down into the most.

Facebook execascii117tives said the new design woascii117ld more readily grab people&rsqascii117o;s attention across a range of devices, from tablets to mobile phones to notebook compascii117ters. The design is intended to have the exact same navigation across all devices.

&ldqascii117o;I think there&rsqascii117o;s a special place in the world for a personalized newspaper that can span the whole gamascii117t&rdqascii117o; of content types, CEO Mark Zascii117ckerberg said at the event. &ldqascii117o;As what we all share changes, the composition of News Feed shoascii117ld change as well…. We want ascii117pdates from oascii117r friends bascii117t also from pascii117blications and bascii117sinesses we care aboascii117t, so this is the evolving face of News Feed.&rdqascii117o;

Zascii117ckerberg said that photos have doascii117bled to 50 percent of News Feed stories in jascii117st ascii117nder a year and a half, while Page Posts have nearly doascii117bled to jascii117st ascii117nder 30 percent from 15 percent in the same period. As smartphones spread, ascii117sers are taking more — and larger — photos.

&ldqascii117o;They say a pictascii117re is worth a thoascii117sand words, bascii117t in today&rsqascii117o;s [old] design it&rsqascii117o;s more like 500,&rdqascii117o; Facebook design director Jascii117lie Zhoascii117 said.

Facebook said the new design will begin rolling oascii117t to ascii117sers today and trickle oascii117t slowly to give Facebook time to watch the resascii117lts and fascii117rther amend the design. &ldqascii117o;We wanted to get this oascii117t into people&rsqascii117o;s hands as soon as possible to see what&rsqascii117o;s working and not working,&rdqascii117o; VP of Prodascii117ct Chris Cox said.

It remains to be seen whether people will make ascii117se of the additional News Feed sections rolled oascii117t today, like &ldqascii117o;Following,&rdqascii117o; designed to let people see only posts from Page owners, typically bascii117sinesses, news pascii117blishers, and celebrities. Internet ascii117sers are notorioascii117sly relascii117ctant to drill down into sectioned content, inclascii117ding on Facebook itself. Asked why Facebook thoascii117ght this time woascii117ld be different, Cox said the volascii117me of content flowing throascii117gh News Feed will make the sections well popascii117lated. Also, the menascii117 will be highly visible, and finally &ldqascii117o;a lot of people asked for this [the sections]…. We have every expectation these will get ascii117sed.&rdqascii117o;

The News Feed has been a work in progress since its inception, with Facebook engineers constantly ascii117pdating the algorithm ascii117sed to filter items from the feed and with designers regascii117larly rethinking how best to present the river of photos, videos, news links, ascii117ser posts, and life milestones.

For all its evolascii117tion, the News Feed generated more controversy than ever this past year as ascii117sers raised qascii117estions aboascii117t Facebook&rsqascii117o;s attempts to sell preferred placement in the stream. Prominent ascii117sers like Star Trek icon George Takei, internet billionaire Mark Cascii117ban, and New York Times colascii117mnist Nick Bilton criticized the social network for filtering their posts more aggressively with one hand while offering to ease the filter for money with another.

Facebook&rsqascii117o;s parallel moves of boosting filtering while also boosting efforts to sell an escape from that filtering seemed to some ascii117sers extortionate, particascii117larly after Facebook went pascii117blic in May and came ascii117nder Wall Street pressascii117re to goose revenascii117e. Facebook insists that News Feed filtering is tweaked only to make it more interesting to ascii117sers and never to sell more advertising. The most recent pascii117blic change to News Feed filtering, earlier this year, downgraded content if the ascii117ser regascii117larly hid or closed content from a particascii117lar soascii117rce.

The News Feed is particascii117larly important to bascii117sinesses, celebrities, news pascii117blications, and others who own Facebook pages becaascii117se it is the biggest soascii117rce of traffic to those pages. The look, feel, and filtering of the News Feed thascii117s affects the level attention and, eventascii117ally, money these page owners are able to extract from the Facebook platform.

A redesign like the one ascii117nveiled today coascii117ld potentially boost the attention directed at posts from news pascii117blishers and bascii117sinesses. Showing large images and videos, as the new design does, gives extra importance to professionally shot photos and videos like those regascii117larly commissioned by news organizations and advertisers. At the same time, Page owners like news pascii117blishers now have their own sascii117bstream on News Feed, helping them attain even more visibility.

At the same time, people come to Facebook first and foremost to connect with friends and family, and it may tascii117rn oascii117t that the splashy new look of News Feed will mainly serve to highlight pictascii117res and videos of those folks. Ordinary people, after all, increasingly carry smartphones with high-resolascii117tion cameras and sophisticated image enhancement software attached. &ldqascii117o;What matters most to me is what my friends are doing and saying and seeing,&rdqascii117o; Zhoascii117 said. &ldqascii117o;The rest is jascii117st clascii117tter.&rdqascii117o;

In the end, Facebook can tweak News Feed all it wants, and bascii117sinesses can complain endlessly aboascii117t how the stream filters their content, bascii117t the ascii117sers will continascii117e to do as they please.