Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) is revamping its News Feed to include bigger photos, sorting by topics and a more consistent design across devices as the world’s most popular social network ramps up efforts to make money from content.
The upgrade to Facebook’s main stream of photo, text and video updates is available to a limited audience starting today. The company said it’s also redesigning advertising that accompanies the flow of information, making it “richer” and more “immersive.”
Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg has been adding services and features in a push to make money from people who log onto the social network from laptops and handheld devices. In the fourth quarter, mobile revenue made up 23 percent of total ad sales as the number of users on smartphones and tablets outpaced desktop users.
“As the world changes, the composition of News Feed changes as well,” Zuckerberg said at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California. “We think there’s a place for a personalized newspaper that can bring these things together.”
Facebook rose 1.6 percent to $27.89 at 2:13 p.m. in New York. Through yesterday, the stock has declined 28 percent since the company went public in May at $38 a share.
Slowing revenue growth and a slump in the stock after the market debut have ratcheted up pressure on Facebook to find new ways to generate sales.
Site Upgrades
Content attracting attention from friends will be more prominent on the site as well. Users will also be able to filter feeds by category, such as music, events, photos, and content they follow on the service. Advertising will probably be added to these specialized feeds over time, Zuckerberg said.
“This design reflects the evolving face of your news feed,” Zuckerberg said. “It’s designed for the way that we’re all sharing today and the trends that we see going forward.”
Facebook in January unveiled Graph Search, designed to make it easier for users to find friends, restaurants, locations and interests based on their social connections. Facebook also is developing a smartphone application that will track the location of users, two people with knowledge of the matter said last month. The app is scheduled for release by mid-March, the people said.
Changes to the News Feed, a feature that’s front and center whenever users log into the social network, haven’t always gone smoothly.
The last major revamp to News Feed in September 2011, which changed the design and accessibility of posts, sparked a minor backlash by users who said it cluttered the page. Even as far back as 2006, two years after Facebook was founded in Zuckerberg’s Harvard University dorm room, users protested an update to the feed, saying that a feature allowing other users to track updates was too intrusive.
