Facebook changes News Feed; music up next
Bad news for those with ears and friends with poor taste in music.
The only Facebook constant is change, and user criticism when those changes occur.
Wednesday morning, millions of social media users awoke to a new “News Feed,” and they didn’t like it.
The News Feed, which tells users what their friends are up to, now put the “most interesting” posts at the top.
Commenting on the Facebook Blog, user Brandi Genest Weeks said: “Quite frankly I don’t want Facebook deciding who is most important in my life. I want my news feed to just go chronologically and if I want to hide posts from someone, I will.”
Jennifer Egan Siler writes: “Give us the option to turn this stuff OFF, it’s terrible and makes me want to leave facebook altogether.”
Joi D Cristofori was more direct and even used all caps to make her point: “”SUCKS. IF IT ISN’T BROKE DON’T FIX IT. THIS IS THE MOST GOD AWFUL THING EVER. YOU JUST TURNED ME INTO A HATER AND THAT IN ITSELF IS A SIN, JERK.”
Still, more than 1,300 “liked” the changes before I hit publish on this prize-winning piece of modern journalism.
Facebook says the new News Feed acts like a newspaper, which I happen to know are hugely popular with the Facebook demographic.
“When you pick up a newspaper after not reading it for a week, the front page quickly clues you into the most interesting stories. In the past, News Feed hasn’t worked like that. Updates slide down in chronological order so it’s tough to zero in on what matters most,” explains Mark Tonkelowitz, an engineering manager at Facebook in a CBS article.
“Now, News Feed will act more like your own personal newspaper. You won’t have to worry about missing important stuff.”
A new feature, dubbed “Ticker” will soon be unveiled. It will track friends’ posts in “real time,” which sounds a lot like the old News Feed. (My account already seems to have it in the upper-right rail.)
Those who like the old News Feed can change their Facebook preferences to “English (UK),” say some.
Facebook fans should brace for more changes. Thursday, developers are expected to announce a host of upcoming tweaks, including a more musical experience.
Mashable reports Facebook will integrate musical services from Spotify and other content providers in the near future. Facebook will not directly host or stream any music or media. Instead, it will rely on partners to provide the content, much like it does with applications and games.
Facebook recently made it possible to demote annoying friends to “acquaintance” status, which seems to mimic Google+’s “Circles” feature.
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94 comments Add your comment
m
September 21st, 2011
12:31 pm
First World Problems.
Nedac
September 21st, 2011
12:46 pm
Why make this more complicated. I just learn one thing and then you change it. Give me the power to change what I want to change. Why should you make such stupid changes that affect millions of users. I don’t like your changes. Why don’t you sell Facebook to someone who relates to it’s users.
Chrissy
September 21st, 2011
12:47 pm
I hate that they keep changing every thing. They want to “keep up” but honestly they are just pushing me to Google+ where I can just learn a whole new system without worrying about it CONSTANTLY being changed. Obama and facebook are prime examples of “change” not always being the best thing.
Chrissy
September 21st, 2011
12:49 pm
And you may be able to click it off the pa when you are using a computer for fb but there are many who simply use facebook mobile or a fb app which doesn’t make this as easy.
Mike
September 21st, 2011
12:52 pm
@CE, if you have a person like that on your feed, that is your problem. Fix it or don’t fix it, we could care less. The point many are making is that Facebook should not be the one to decided what is important to you.
Will Stockdale
September 21st, 2011
1:02 pm
Hey Ben, maybe you’ll get to like the Air Force. Zooming all over the sky and shouting ROGER and WILCO and everything. Maybe it won’t be so bad.
Wait, Facebook is MySpace? — Janet Fouts - Social Media Coach
September 21st, 2011
1:06 pm
[...] developer knows the first rule of web design is to listen to what the client wants, collect their feedback and do a needs assessment. That’s even more true in a social network whose users are often [...]
DJ Rattlehead
September 21st, 2011
1:09 pm
“Facebook, you’re not near as smart as you think you are. Your algorithms for deciding what I want to see, who I want to talk to or what I think is important are 99.999% of the time the exact polar opposite of what I want. Everything you do to try to simplify things only complicates things more. Every attempt you make to improve things inevitably ends up in a HUGE step backwards. Take for example the new way Facebook displays pictures when clicked on that now appear initially as a compressed blurry mess reminiscent of the internet circa 1990. Something as simple as a Friend Request is now just a headache of options. The chat, instead of just showing everybody that’s online now is broken up into segments that YOU THINK I want to talk to, more often than not displaying many that I rarely want to chat with and many that aren’t even online. Do I have the option to just display everyone that IS online? Nope, because as history has taught us Facebook isn’t about viewing or doing things that I want, it’s about Facebook coming up with some ludicrous idea of how things “should” be and than ramming it down it’s users throats. I echo the sentiments of others that have cited that it is this kind of mentality that killed MySpace, a reminder that Facebook should never consider themselves “too big to fail.” You’re not…”
Changes To Facebook’s News Feeds | Social Media Coaching Center
September 21st, 2011
1:21 pm
[...] developer knows the first rule of web design is to listen to what the client wants, collect their feedback and do a needs assessment. That’s even more true in a social network whose users are often [...]
gtalum06
September 21st, 2011
1:29 pm
The last FB changes were finally growing on me, and they had to go switch it up. It’s awful… besides, their reason for the new news feed is stupid, especially considering you already had the option of either having the most popular/interesting posts OR the most recent. I always chose recent, b/c FB’s idea of what is most popular/interesting to me is pretty off the mark.
I am thinking FB is about to go down just like Myspace did… at least for me.