Two New Facebook Features Change Newsfeeds Once More
Posted by aonenetworks On August 12, 2013
Facebook users have long complained about Facebook’s optimized algorithms that dictate what you see in your feed, and now Facebook has introduced two new features to change this.
The first feature is called “story bumping,” which allows stories that are popular on Facebook at the time to appear on your feed, even if you didn’t scroll down far enough to see them the first time. For example, if a page that you’ve liked posts something that becomes wildly popular, even though you might have missed the post since it was posted in the middle of the night, the story will be bumped to the top of your feed so that you have a chance to read it. This feature also applies to personal posts, but will be used mainly for “business” page posts. Posts that are bumped are in no way paid for, Facebook says – they’re all organically popular.
Story bumping was recently tested with a small group of users, and stories that were bumped saw a 5-10% in popularity and “likes’. In addition, users were suddenly reading over 70% of the posts that appeared in there News Feeds compared to 57% before story bumping was introduced. Critics have said that, without advertising, businesses could find themselves at the top of more News Feeds, and if companies choose to advertise on Facebook that they should focus more on News Feed ads rather than sidebar or “promotion” of a post.
The other new feature is something called “last actor,” which pumps up content on your News Feed if you’ve recently interacted with them. This new update includes businesses and personal pages alike. So if you like a photo from a page or a person, they’ll start to appear more on your feed. “Last actor” considers the last fifty or so interactions you’ve had with Facebook content.
Other new features announced this week include secure browsing for all users, embedded posts and possible video ads as a form of advertising.
