Mar 30
Last year Facebook debuted a nice redesign that featured big, beautiful pictures, seen above. But Facebook never rolled it out. Why? Because most people have crappy old computers.
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Sep 20
Facebook developing brain-like AI to find deeper meaning in feeds and photos
Posted in: Today's Chili
Facebook’s current News Feed ranking isn’t all that clever — it’s good at surfacing popular updates, but it can miss lower-profile updates that are personally relevant. The company may soon raise the News Feed’s IQ, however, as it recently launched an artificial intelligence research group. The new team hopes to use deep learning AI, which simulates a neural network, to determine which posts are genuinely important. The technology could also sort a user’s photos, and it might even select the best shots. While the AI work has only just begun, the company tells MIT Technology Review that it should release some findings to the public; those breakthroughs in social networking could help society as a whole.
Filed under: Internet, Facebook
Source: MIT Technology Review
Aug 23
Facebook tweaks News Feed, adds new algorithm to serve up high quality content
Posted in: Today's Chili
The usefulness of Facebook’s News Feed ranking algorithm may not be universally agreed upon, but the social network’s dedication to improving it is unquestionable. Today, FB has updated that ranking system with a newly developed algorithm meant to better surface “high quality content” from pages users are connected to at the top of News Feed. To do so, the algorithm makes determinations about what content is timely, relevant, from trusted sources and is likely to be shared — and also identifying content that users complain about seeing or attempts to “game News Feed” distribution with solicited likes. These signals were informed by the results from surveying a few thousand users, and after implementation in a small scale test, Facebook found folks sharing, liking and commenting on more stories, and hiding fewer of them. As such, we can all expect to see the update in the next few weeks, so brace for a Facebook flood of insightful stories, funny cat videos, or whatever else it is you’re into.
Filed under: Internet, Facebook
Source: Facebook for Business
Aug 06
At an event at its headquarters, Facebook explained how exactly stories are ranked in your news feed. It also showed off new changes that are coming, which are designed to help you discover older content in your feed.
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Aug 06
Facebook explains its News Feed post ranking process, rolls out story bumping feature to improve UX
Posted in: Today's Chili
Have a love/hate relationship with your Facebook news feed? Sure, that feed serves up plenty of photos and posts from friends and family that you want to see, but there are also plenty of posts you could do with out, or posts you wish had been assigned greater importance. Facebook knows this, and is constantly tinkering and iterating its news feed post ranking processes to provide the most relevant stories possible to each individual user. To that end, Facebook’s rolling out a new feature, called story bumping, to better percolate the stuff you care about to the top of your feed. Story bumping has already been launched on the web, and will be rolling out to mobile in the coming weeks.
Previously, Facebook evaluated the most recent posts on the social network by assigning each post a score based upon a series of factors including: number of likes and comments, the relationship between you and the poster, the type of content, etc. Using those signals, Facebook runs them through a proprietary algorithm to determine a post’s score. News feed then displays the posts with the highest score at the top of the feed. However, this method often resulted in relevant posts being relegated below the fold, and those posts would forever be lost in the never-ending social story avalanche. Story bumping provides a way for such posts to be seen by tweaking the recency logic previously used. Instead of picking from the most recent posts, the system now looks for the most recent posts that have not been viewed by the user, so that those older, yet relevant posts get a second crack at showing up in the top of your feed.
Filed under: Internet, Facebook
Source: Facebook for Business
Jul 23
Hiding posts on Facebook has been a pretty simple affair, but the firm’s gearing up to add a little more nuance. Instead of simply dismissing updates or sponsored stories, the social network will soon ask users why they decided to banish them from their News Feed. Details on how the feature will work are still MIA, but it could very well function like the site’s advertisement hiding feature, which asks if ads are uninteresting, misleading or otherwise unpleasant. Naturally, giving the outfit the extra intel will allow it to serve up content and ads that better please your palate. Facebook’s Product Manager for Ads Fidji Simo told ABC News that it’ll start testing the tweaks soon, and users should start seeing them surface within the next three to four months. In the meantime, feel free to hide posts without answering to Zuck.
Filed under: Internet, Facebook
Source: ABC News
May 16
The ever-changing web portal that is Yahoo under Marissa Mayer will receive its next tweak with help from Twitter. In addition to providing summarized stories, Yahoo newsfeed will soon include occasional tweets based on your interests. Folks in the US can expect to see the change in the coming days across desktop and mobile versions of Yahoo — just try to keep your excitement contained to 140 characters.
Source: Yahoo
Mar 12
Facebook made a sharp break from tradition when it unveiled the simplified News Feed, but how did it get there? As the social network’s Jane Justice Leibrock has just explained, it was as simple as shuffling cards. Well, almost. Leibrock gave focus group subjects a stack of cards reflecting their recent social updates and asked them to pick the cream of the crop as well as sort the rest into groups. The results led to the filtered approach that’s rolling out now: users tend to gravitate toward specific categories such as close friends, photos and direct interests, rather than piling everything together. As often as people accuse Facebook of launching surprise changes, it’s clear that the News Feed revamp involved at least some deliberation.
Filed under: Internet, Facebook
Source: Facebook
Mar 07
Facebook freshens up News Feed, brings bigger images, feed filtering and a uniform cross-platform UX
Posted in: Today's Chili 
We knew Facebook had something new planned for its News Feed, and today at an event at Facebook HQ in Menlo Park, the company confirmed those rumors. As suspected, the new feed filters content by type to display whatever specific feed you choose (be it photos, music, games, etc.), plus it presents even larger images and bigger advertisements. The new layout also serves to better highlight Pages users have liked in a more central and easier to access area, and provides info pulled in by services linked to folks’ Facebook IDs.The desktop FB site’s not the only beneficiary of the new layout, as the Social Network is also bringing these features to its mobile apps as well to provide a consistent experience across platforms. And, the best part is it starts rolling out today to a select few, with a wider rollout to follow once all the kinks have been worked out.
Gallery: Facebook News Feed event
Why the change? Well, Mark Zuckerberg said that the goal for News Feed is to “give everyone in the world the best personalized newspaper we can,” and making it more visually engaging will help Facebook reach that goal. You see, almost 50 percent of the content in News Feed is now photos, and almost 30 percent of content comes from Pages. Want to know more? There’s more info about the changes after the break.
Filed under: Internet, Software, Facebook
Source: Facebook
Mar 05
We’ve already had one major Facebook press event this year for the launch of Open Graph personalized search features but according to TechCrunch, another one later this week will herald the arrival of a revamped news feed. The new main page will filter content by type to pull out photos, music, with larger images overall and larger images for advertisements. The mockup shown above is based on information distilled from various sources that indicates the social network’s plan is to put currently buried feeds like Pages users have liked in a more central and easier to access area, along with information pulled in by the ever expanding number of services linked to one’s Facebook ID. What isn’t confirmed however, according to the TechCrunch rumor are revamp views for the mobile apps, despite the company’s stated plan to go “mobile best” in 2013. Hit the source link for more details on how your mother will be keeping tabs on you in the near future.
Filed under: Internet, Facebook
Source: TechCrunch
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