In an effort to get more app developers on board using sections, the Facebook Developer blog released a list of best practices for creating customized sections and added section timeline analytics to their App Insight tool. After replacing aggregations with app sections last month, Facebook has rolled-out sections to everyone, and according to the blog post, "...are seeing almost 200 million items added daily." With sections, users can rate movie, TV show and book content directly on their timeline, as well as include ratings from apps. By highlighting a number of apps already using section [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Facebook: Apps & App Center | Facebook: Insights | Facebook: Open Graph | Facebook: User Interface | Social Media Marketing

The folks from sketch comedy group Extremely Decent  have personified the frustration many users have felt upon seeing yet another update to the Facebook UI. Ready for your friends and friends-of-friends to have access to your music and photos? Want to find out about all the events you've been invited to? Take the tour! Here it is: A Facebook Update In Real Life [youtube]http://youtu.be/JvQcabZ1zrk[/youtube] [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Facebook | Facebook: User Interface

Earlier, we covered the launch of Facebook "Home," the company's homescreen strategy for Android devices (also see live blog). As expected, Facebook also introduced a branded phone, the HTC "First." The First is available in the US exclusively from AT&T for $99 (locked and with a contract). There are lots of interesting implications from the announcement today that we'll explore in other stories in the coming days. However, in this post, I'll go through some of the basic features of Cover Feed and Chat Heads, as well as how Home affects the general Android handset experience. What [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Facebook: Home | Facebook: Mobile | Facebook: User Interface | Features & Analysis | Top News

To date, Twitter has owned the market on real-time, crowd-sourced information. Whether it's during the Super Bowl, Television, or cultural events -- users flock to Twitter (and hashtags) to see what's happening. Our own Danny Sullivan summed up the current Facebook/Twitter experience masterfully in the article "For Social Media Viewing, Twitter Is Live TV, Facebook Is DVR." Well, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal, Facebook wants out of its DVR status and in on the hashtag. Sure both Google+ and Instagram support tags, but Facebook has typically stayed far away from th [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Facebook | Facebook: User Interface | Social Media Marketing | Social Media Marketing: Advertising | Social Media Marketing: Hashtags | Top News | Twitter | Twitter: User Interface | Uncategorized

The "Pinterestization" of Facebook continues. The company today introduced changes to Timeline that allow users to more easily and prominently display collections of things they like (via apps). This was part of the introduction of an overall Timeline redesign. Images in posts are larger and are seen on the right (a mirror of some of the recent News Feed changes), while other photos, music and recent activity are clustered in a slightly narrower column on the left. There's also a bigger emphasis on apps as sources of self expression. App-based custom collections (movies, books, im [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Facebook | Facebook: Apps & App Center | Facebook: Open Graph | Facebook: User Interface | Features & Analysis | Top News

Facebook has a new look to its news feed rolling out. How different is it? Not only is it a new visually pleasing look, but it also has substantial changes to the amount of "rich" information shown about content. Below, some before-and-after from my own news feed. Let's start with this: That's what I saw at the top of my news feed in the old look, with a post from George Takei followed by a "Most Shared" box for Rolling Stone, showing me a popular story from the magazine, which I follow on Facebook. Now the new look: The first big change is that much more space is being devoted to new [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Facebook | Facebook: User Interface | Features & Analysis

While most people don't think of Facebook as the equivalent of a "personalized newspaper," that's how many inside Facebook think about News Feed. And that was the metaphor repeatedly used throughout the presentation today. But more on that later. Here's our related coverage from today: How To Get The New Facebook News Feed Power To Separate Feeds: A Look At The Filtering Inside The New Facebook News Feed Facebook’s New News Feed: The Before & After Look And now, an overview of what Facebook announced today. In a nutshell, here are the changes: Less clutter on the homepa [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Facebook | Facebook: Business Issues | Facebook: Mobile | Facebook: User Interface | Top News

So, you've read about the new look for Facebook's news feed and want to try it yourself? Here's how. The new look is rolling out today to those who request it. Go here to do that, and use the "Try the new look" button: After you've done that, you'll get a confirmation: Then it's waiting time. When you're in, you'll see a message in at the top of your feed: Select the "Give It a Try" button, and you'll enable it and get a little tour: The last part is nice. If you decide you prefer the old look, you can switch back. Facebook's Chris Cox, vice president of product, says there [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Facebook | Facebook: User Interface | Top News

Facebook's new-look newsfeed features bigger, more dramatic images, revamped profile display and matching mobile experiences. However, the biggest change, hands down, is the separation of feeds. For the first time ever, Facebook is allowing users to filter their content directly from the newsfeed by specific content type. The feed selector is placed in prominent real estate. On the web version the choices are located in the upper right and on the mobile devices the feeds are located at the very top of the app. The new feed choices that users can select from are: All Friends Ima [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Facebook | Facebook: User Interface | Top News

In a press event tomorrow, Facebook will be announcing big changes to the news feed ... again. According to TechCrunch, the changes will include filter-able content that will allow users to view specific content on their feed. Filterable options will exist on the top of the page and will include sorting the feed by music or photos according to the article. Additionally the new newsfeed will be much larger than the current format. This means larger images, articles and of course ads for users. Facebook recently updated the image size of images in links nearly 3x to 154px by 154px and accordi [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Facebook | Facebook: User Interface | Top News

Yesterday, New York Times columnist Nick Bilton made claims that Facebook was limiting organic post visibility in favor of paid posts. Today, Facebook responded with a detailed fact check on how organic visibility works. In some experiments, Bilton found that paid posts saw 1,000 more interaction when he paid to promote it, and was limited to next to no visibility without payment. He talked about the downfall of subscribers where he once garnered triple-digit engagement which is now down to single-digit post interactions. He also claimed that Facebook may be purposefully restraining  [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Facebook: Statistics | Facebook: User Interface | Top News

Facebook is holding a press event next Thursday at its Menlo Park, California headquarters. We'll be there live blogging the event at 10 Pacific/1 Eastern. The purpose of the event is to showcase a new look for Facebook's newsfeed. This may be both for mobile and the PC. According to an earlier article on TechCrunch (discussing mobile), the look of the new feed will be bolder and bigger, with new navigation: The news feed of the evolved Facebook app I’ve seen creates separate feeds for a few different content types including news and photos. Users navigate between them by swiping [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Facebook | Facebook: Apps & App Center | Facebook: Mobile | Facebook: User Interface | Social Media Marketing | Top News

Search is the de facto way in which consumers navigate content platforms. Not just the Web via traditional search engines, but all types of platforms, from television to radio to music libraries. The fact that search has always been lacking from Facebook has long been a source of criticism and frustration. Facebook Search Graph There’s a lot of content on Facebook. Until Facebook Graph Search was announced by the company last Tuesday, there has been very little way to find or use it. It’s been impossible to search actual content, aside from given names or perhaps classmates. Graph Sea [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content Marketing | Content Marketing | Content Marketing Column | Facebook: Advertising | Facebook: User Interface

It appears that Facebook will be conforming with social naming norm. The Verge is reporting that all of the "subscribe" actions are going to be converted to "follow" actions.  This will not change the "friend" functionality, rather is simply a name change for the subscribe feature. The name change appears to be a play to entice more users to follow celebrities on Facebook. Following has been the long-time verb of record when describing a 1-way connection in social, not Facebook's "subscribe" verbiage.  Additionally, the "subscribe" feature could be misleading as users can subscribe to an [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Facebook | Facebook: Buttons & Plugins | Facebook: User Interface | Uncategorized

One of the staples in Facebook's Timeline display has been the two column view of a user or page's profile. Today InsideFacebook spotted a single column layout of Timeline in the wild. The example has updates stay on the left side while open graph modules like Instagram, Friends, Recent Activity were located in the right hand side. We reached out to Facebook who confirmed the test stating that it was a test made available to a small percentage of folks. Image courtesy of InsideFacebook. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Facebook | Facebook: User Interface | Social Media Marketing

Facebook now claims 543 million monthly active mobile users. The good news for Facebook is that mobile users are "more active" than PC users. The bad news is that mobile users are much harder for the social site to make money from. This challenge has been widely discussed and was the subject of several questions on the recent Q2 Facebook earnings call. Facebook executives repeated several times during the call that they were being cautious about monetizing mobile so as to not disrupt the user experience. Source: Facebook Facebook is going to need to do something different with its [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Facebook: Advertising | Facebook: Mobile | Facebook: Statistics | Facebook: User Interface | Statistics: Social Media | Top News

There's been a lot of speculation about the impact that Facebook's Timeline has had on business pages since their launch in late February and the full transition a month later. Some early reports said fan engagement was up on business pages, while other reports said the opposite. Now, citing data from analytics provider Pagelever, Mashable is reporting that fan engagement on Facebook Page tabs is down 53 percent since Timeline's launch. From the Mashable report: Why the general drop-off? PageLever founder Jeff Widman believes it's a combination of two things: That brands can no longer se [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Facebook: Pages | Facebook: User Interface

Facebook, notorious for tweaking and testing its layout, is at it again post-IPO. Talking Points Memo spotted a streamlined version of timeline that allocates less real-estate for friends, photos, and likes. Instead of pulling in profile/page information under the cover photo, simple icons exist: Here is a look at the current (non-test) version of Timeline: One of the additions that the layout brings is "summary" which highlights life events. Another interesting difference is that instead of "likes" the icon now reads "favorites." Facebook did not comment on the new-look timeline but [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Facebook | Facebook: Marketing | Facebook: User Interface

Last week we reported on Facebook Interest Lists that were reported in the wild.  Today its official - Interest Lists have launched.  In an effort to help users personalize, tidy up and subscribe to pertinent genres of information users can now search for and create custom targeted lists.  When logged into Facebook, users will see a message about the new feature, or can navigate directly to their interests page: Interest lists will help users see more posts from their interests, essentially replacing broad community pages about topics.  When describing interest lists, Facebook state [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Facebook | Facebook: Business Issues | Facebook: Open Graph | Facebook: User Interface | Top News

Today Facebook rolled out a new version of pages that look much closer to profiles thanks to the addition of Timeline.  As reported, this release coincides with the Facebook Marketing Conference (fMC) occurring today in New York.  The new look Pages have much bolder and visually appealing look: Some of the highlights of the new pages give admins the ability to add milestones, cover pages, customize the page with pertinent information, message privately, view activity logs and have access to more admin tools. Cover Photo Just like Timeline for profiles, Pages will now have the [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Facebook | Facebook: Pages | Facebook: User Interface | Top News