Facebook to deliver more news in ‘News Feed’

Facebook to deliver more news in ‘News
Feed’
on december 03, 2013 at 4:22 pm in news
SAN FRANCISCO - Facebook is boosting its efforts
to put more news in its News Feed.
That is, real news from the news media, rather than
status updates from friends.
The world’s biggest social network, cognizant of its
growing importance for discovering news, said in a
blog post on Monday that it is revising the way it
delivers information to its billion-plus users.
“People use Facebook to share and connect,
including staying current on the latest news,
whether it’s about their favorite celebrity or what’s
happening in the world,” said the blog post from
Facebook engineering manager Varun Kacholia and
software engineer Minwen Ji.
“We’ve noticed that people enjoy seeing articles on
Facebook, and so we’re now paying closer attention
to what makes for high quality content, and how
often articles are clicked on from News Feed on
mobile. What this means is that you may start to
notice links to articles a little more often
(particularly on mobile).”
The blog noted that “our surveys show that on
average people prefer links to high quality articles
about current events, their favorite sports team or
shared interests, to the latest meme.”
And Facebook will tweak the way its displays
articles in user News Feeds: “This means that high
quality articles you or others read may show up a
bit more prominently in your News Feed, and meme
photos may show up a bit less prominently,” the
engineers wrote.
They added that Facebook will also “show people
additional articles similar to ones they had just
read.”
“Soon, after you click on a link to an article, you
may see up to three related articles directly below
the News Feed post to help you discover more
content you may find interesting,” they said.
But to avoid diminishing the updates from friends,
Facebook will revise its “bumping,” which means
that after a user reads an article it may not show up
again in the News Feed unless there are new
comments from friends.
A study earlier this year showed Facebook is
becoming a key source of news for users of the
huge social network, even if people discover
articles mostly by happenstance.
The study by the Pew Research Center, in
collaboration with the Knight Foundation, found 64
percent of US adults use Facebook, and nearly half
of those get some news from the service. That
amounts to 30 percent of the overall US population
who are “Facebook news consumers,” Pew said.
Facebook reported in October that referral traffic
from the social network to media sites has
increased by over 170 percent over the past year.