Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Thursday that the social media giant’s News Feed would undergo a massive overhaul – the first major change since Timeline was introduced in 2011.
Zuckerberg referred to the overhaul as a “personalized newspaper” several times at a press event unveiling the launch.
“We believe that the best personalized newspaper should have a broad diversity of content,” Zuckerberg said. “It should have high-quality public content from world renowned sources, and it should also have socially and locally relevant content from family, friends and the people around you.”
The News Feed will now have emphasis given to three components – bigger images, multiple feeds and consistency for mobile devices. Photos will be much larger and will comprise over half of News Feed stories. Users can subscribe to various feeds – all friends, close friends, music, etc. – all with a chronological view of stories. Facebook will also utilize a new side navigation bar and throw in more white space to keep consistency regardless of mobile or web platform.
“It should also enable you to drill into any topic you want to discuss,” Zuckerberg said. “It should have a front page, or top news section of the most important things going on… and it should let you drill down into any individual topic that you want.”
The new News Feed is to be rolled out today, but don’t brace yourself for the changes just yet. Facebook is rolling it out on a limited basis so it can collect feedback first.
