Facebook announces new features

When it comes to Noise filtering, Facebook’s efforts are noticeable. Borrowing concepts, we are already familiar with, from Twitter or Google+, Facebook has advanced them to make Facebook Feeds more relevant to individual users.  The second feature, Tickers, brings back life to real-time conversation. The two features that are recently announced:

News Feed: See What Matters at the Top

The definition of “See what matters” is very crucial – and definitely one that will make this whole hoopla about “Noise Control” and “Relevancy” real. Facebook’s new News Feed feature works around the frequency of a users visit on Facebook. News Feed will deliver more recent news as “top stories” to a frequent Facebook’er. However, it will curate a set of “interesting” content – I assume, posts with photos and videos, and one with more shares+likes+comments – and, make it a part of the top stories for an infrequent visitor.

Ticker: For Real-time Conversations and Updates 

Basically, it means ignore all the “Top Stories” complications as described above, and see all updates as they happen – real time, in a side panel or a “Ticker”. I can see  how it can be useful, addictive, and interesting.

The  sharing control or apps settings allow users to set and adjust their News Feed and Ticker to their own liking.  While, these features are interesting, and have clear difference in how updates will be seen – the initial response from the user base is at best, mixed.

Where is my Post?

The following video is a user’s first reaction to the NewsFeed changes. As it appears, to someone who is not aware of the change, this could be annoying.

Next, we will talk about Google+ a bit. Because, I believe, Search + Social has tremendous power.