Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg this afternoon announced some major changes that are coming to the Facebook News Feed, which will cut down on the content displayed from publishers to instead highlight more content from family and friends.
According to Zuckerberg, feedback from Facebook users has suggested content from businesses, brands, and media is crowding out personal content from friends, something Facebook wants to correct. Rather than aiming to help Facebook users find relevant content, it will now help users find "meaningful social interactions."
Based on this, we're making a major change to how we build Facebook. I'm changing the goal I give our product teams from focusing on helping you find relevant content to helping you have more meaningful social interactions.
Zuckerberg says that it will take months to roll out the new focus to all of its products, but the first change will be coming to the News Feed, which will feature more content from family, friends, and groups. Less public content will be displayed, and what is displayed, should encourage meaningful interactions.
As we roll this out, you'll see less public content like posts from businesses, brands, and media. And the public content you see more will be held to the same standard -- it should encourage meaningful interactions between people.
Through implementing these changes, Zuckerberg expects to see engagement and the time people spend on Facebook go down, but the time that is spent on Facebook "will be more valuable." Doing the right thing, he says, will be "good for the community" and Facebook's business over the long term.
Top Rated Comments
Reminds me of McDonals. Every few years, they get backlash for their unhealthy menu, so they make some cosmetic changes promoting their salads, apples in kids meals, etc. six months later, everything back to normal.
And none of these announcements change the cancer that is the surveillance apartus that is Facebook. They will just make some changes to make their product stink less. Who cares.
Honestly, Facebook can’t fall fast enough to the dustbin that is Friendstr, AOL, et al.
At least with Twitter you can fix this with a good client.