Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) is now looking beyond the customary likes, comments and sharing by its subscribers to rank its News Feed stories for updates. Engineers working on this specific product, Cheng Zhang and Si Chen in their blog post noted that the old metrics of pushing news stories that received maximum likes, clicking or commenting did not ‘give the whole story.’
Therefore, they have now engineered an alternative and more conclusive algorithm which helps those rank News Feed Updates. Much of this is based on research that it conducted. It asked it users all over the world to rate their stories, even as it ran in-house quality checks on the feed. The response of the users helped them to understand what interests’ people. This method does not place a primacy on comments, like or clicks on each post.
Research supported
Based on their research Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) engineers found that user experience with News Feed was different when they saw stories which they liked but also engaged them.
In its initial round s of research, in December, a topic-based feed updates was tested for iOS app users and desktop users. During the tests, users could swipe to focus on their choice of style or food or headlines or sports, pets, travel, entertainment, games. Many posts related to politics, baby photos and page posts were also included.
The topic-based testing allows Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) to gain further information on which news topic or feed interests and engages it users the most. The social networking site works to offer intuitive experiences on the website with each of its products, News Feed did require major overhaul.
Prioritization feature
Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) also has a prioritization feature for users on slower and legacy internet connections. Users on low speeds will only receive status updates as well as links. High-density videos and other data would be deferred until the users accesses faster speeds.
Anthony Young
Latest posts by Anthony Young (see all)
- Samuel Nathan Kahn (Manchester, UK) – Fit to Run Finance Firm - July 31, 2021
- Quarashi’s Ticks the All the Right Boxes… Anonymously - July 16, 2021
- JETT Lifts Off in Miami Launch - July 16, 2021
