Facebook redesigns News Feed – will users like it?

21 Sep 2011

Social networking giant Facebook has revamped the News Feed, effectively placing all stories in one place, adding a new ‘ticker’ feature and getting rid of the ‘Top Stories’ and ‘Most Recent’ buttons.

It will be interesting to see what users make of the new format. ‘Profile’ has disappeared to be replaced by the users’ name. And users can get to the top stories in their News Feed by clicking on the ‘Home’ button.

Each top story will be marked with a blue corner and stories that are recent will be listed in the order they were posted.

Facebook says the new changes give users greater control over their News Feed by being able to filter out friends, pages, groups or apps and re-add them if they wish.

The ‘new look’ Facebook

All in all, the redesign gives Facebook a slicker, cleaner, more modern look.

On the top right hand corner above the pane that tells you which friends are currently online, there’s a pane that highlights recent activity, such as who ‘likes’ what or latest comments on friends’ posts.

But the speed of change on Facebook as it gets ready for tomorrow’s all-important F8 developers conference – no doubt with a host of new features to follow, including an entertainment hub – is causing more than a few grumbles .

As one user pointed out: “Every time I log in now there’s something different.”

Well, it looks like there’s still more to come.

Newsfeed 2News Feed 1

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com