New Facebook: Changes, Challenges and Solutions (Hybrid newsfeed)
03/11/2011 Leave a Comment
Since the latest Facebook update we have received a lot of questions on how it is possible that impressions on certain posts have dropped significantly and why some posts didn’t show up at user’s wall at all. Of course we have done our research and want to give you a short update about our latest findings. (These findings have been supported and confirmed by Facebook engineers as well)
Changes in Facebook
The two most important changes that have been done in recent updates are the way status updates in the Newsfeeds are shown and the Ticker.
Before the recent update, Facebook separated Top News (based on EdgeRank) and Recent (in chronologic order). This has changed into one “hybride” flow with messages. When you open your newsfeed, the first messages you’ll see are “top stories”, which are based on the EdgeRank. When you scroll down you’ll find your other messages in chronological order. Facebook stores your messages until you login and then decides which messages are relevant for you based on the EdgeRanker.
To make sure you don’t miss any posts while you are using Facebook, they have introduced the Ticker. This is a column on the right-side of your screen which shows the real-time updates of your friends. In this Ticker you are able to respond to these updates directly. In the app settings in Facebook, users are able to select which updates they want to see in the Ticker.
