Facebook to prioritize delivering local news to users worldwide

After it first rolled out to US users back in January, Facebook will now expand its goal to prioritize the inclusion of local news in its News Feed worldwide.

The change will take effect to help local publishers reach audiences in their respective cities, the social media site announced in a blog post yesterday.

Facebook explained that a publisher will be identified as local to multiple cities “if the people in those cities are more likely than the people outside of those cities to read articles from the publisher’s domain.”

It added: “By expanding the scope of what may be considered local to people, we’re including other cities that people may care about and connecting people to local publishers from those cities.”

The social media site also promised to prioritize “high quality” in News Feed that includes “news from sources that are broadly trusted, informative and relevant to local communities.”

“Many people told me they thought that if we could turn down the temperature on the more divisive issues and instead focus on concrete local issues, then we’d all make more progress together,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a post back in January, when the update was first introduced to US users.  /ra

source: technology.inquirer.net

‘Snooze’ feature on FB lets users temporarily hide people, pages

Friendships need not be ended for good any more due to movie spoilers with this new Facebook feature called “Snooze.”

The new Snooze feature works by temporarily hiding posts from people and pages of the user’s choosing. For example, friends who like to post movie spoilers just to watch the internet writhe in agony can be temporarily hidden for 30 days from a user’s News Feed.

Furthermore, the Snoozed will not be notified that someone has chosen to temporarily not see their posts.

Like an alarm clock’s snooze function, the Snoozed person or page will eventually return to the user’s News Feed. A notification will be sent to the user before the Snooze period ends. Users can also un-Snooze anyone at their leisure. JB

source: technology.inquirer.net

Facebook tests splitting its News Feed into two

SAN FRANCISCO - Facebook Inc said on Monday it was testing the idea of dividing its News Feed in two, separating commercial posts from personal news in a move that could lead some businesses to increase advertising.

The Facebook News Feed, the centerpiece of the world's largest social network service, is a streaming series of posts such as photos from friends, updates from family members, advertisements and material from celebrities or other pages that a user has liked.

The test, which is occurring in six smaller countries, now offers two user feeds, according to a statement from the company: one feed focused on friends and family and a second dedicated to the pages that the customer has liked.

The change could force those who run pages, everyone from news outlets to musicians to sports teams, to pay to run advertisements if they want to be seen in the feed that is for friends and family.

The test is taking place in Bolivia, Cambodia, Guatemala, Serbia, Slovakia and Sri Lanka, and it will likely go on for months, Adam Mosseri, the Facebook executive in charge of the News Feed, said in a blog post.

Mosseri said the company has no plans for a global test of the two separate feeds for its 2 billion users.

Facebook also does not currently plan to force commercial pages "to pay for all their distribution," he said.

Facebook, based in Menlo Park, California, frequently tests changes big and small as it tries to maximize the time people spend scrolling and browsing the network. Sometimes it makes changes permanent, and other times not.

Depending on how people respond, two news feeds could mean that they see fewer links to news stories. News has proved to be a tricky area for Facebook, as hoaxes and false news stories have sometimes spread easily on the network.

The test has already affected website traffic for smaller media outlets in recent days, Slovakian journalist Filip Struhárik wrote over the weekend in a post on Medium.

Publishers might need to buy more Facebook ads to be seen, he wrote: "If you want your Facebook page posts to be seen in old newsfeed, you have to pay." —Reuters

Facebook to make News Feed more informative

After dealing with rogue ads and notorious clickbaits, Facebook is now tuning the News Feed to make it more informative by introducing a new “ranking signal” feature.

The new feature is meant to give more exposure to informative stories on users’ Feed than it would have appeared before the update, reports TechRadar.

Facebook’s algorithm works by having members of the Feed Quality Program rank stories from one to five, one being “not really informative” and five being “really informative.” Stories that are ranked highly by participants will be asked to explain why they like seeing the story.

For those not in the know, the Feed Quality Program consists of tens of thousands of surveys that are being crowd-sourced daily. There are even more direct participants involved who get paid for their efforts.

When combined, it allows Facebook to filter out informative stories while relying on user interests and preferences.  Alfred Bayle


source: technology.inquirer.net