AfterDawn: Tech news

Facebook revamping the news feed radically, makes more room for ads?

Written by Matti Robinson @ 24 Oct 2017 11:12

Facebook revamping the news feed radically, makes more room for ads?

Facebook is allegedly currently trialing a new news feed where the main feed might be swarmed by ads. This would entail that some more relevant posts get moved to a secondary feed.
According to the information by The Guardian the new feed is being tested in six countries that include Slovakia and Serbia.

Facebook's new approach would mean that most of the content from liked paged would be moved from the main feed to the secondary feed, and thus the main news feed would consist of posts by friends as well as so-called promoted posts, also known as advertisements.

This would obviously mean that if a news source wants to reach the Facebook users they have to promote their piece or otherwise it'll be shown only in the secondary. And we all know what happens when you demote something to, for example, Google's second page or further.



It of course could be that people who want to follow liked paged, including the ones publishing news, will start following two pages instead of one but so far in the trial it doesn't look like it. According to the Guardian the user engagement has dropped between 60 and 80 percent.

It would seems that trial might not be going too well, although who knows Facebook's targets. Facebook, like other internet companies, does a lot of this type of A/B testing, and if indeed it doesn't work in a smaller scale then we will likely never see it implemented worldwide.

Previous Next  
Comments have been disabled for this article.

Latest news

VLC hits milestone: over 5 billion downloads VLC hits milestone: over 5 billion downloads (16 Mar 2024 4:31)
VLC Media Player, the versatile video-software powerhouse, has achieved a remarkable feat: it has been downloaded over 5 billion times.
1 user comment
Sideloading apps to Android gets easier, as Google settles its lawsuit Sideloading apps to Android gets easier, as Google settles its lawsuit (19 Dec 2023 11:09)
Google settled its lawsuit in September 2023, and one of the settlement terms was that the way applications are installed on Android from outside the Google Play Store must become simpler. In the future, installing APK files will be easier.
8 user comments
Roomba Combo j7+ review - Clever trick allows robot vacuum finally to tackle home with rugs and carpets Roomba Combo j7+ review - Clever trick allows robot vacuum finally to tackle home with rugs and carpets (06 Jun 2023 9:19)
Roomba Combo j7+ is the very first Roomba model to combine robot vacuum with mopping features. And Roomba Combo j7+ does all that with a very clever trick, which tackles the problem with mopping and carpets. But is it any good? We found out.
Neato, the robot vacuum company, ends its operations Neato, the robot vacuum company, ends its operations (02 May 2023 3:38)
Neato Robotics has ceased its operations. American robot vacuum pioneer founded in 2005 has finally called it quits and company will cease its operations and sales. Only a skeleton crew will remain who will keep the servers running until 2028.
5 user comments
How to Send Messages to Yourself on WhatsApp How to Send Messages to Yourself on WhatsApp (20 Mar 2023 1:25)
The world's most popular messaging platform, Meta-owned WhatsApp has enabled sending messages to yourself. While at first, this might seem like an odd feature, it can be very useful in a lot of situations. ....
18 user comments

News archive