Facebook 'personal' news feed gets algorithm rejig Facebook has updated its News Feed function and upset some users who have taken to - IRONY ALERT! - Twitter to complain about it. Tomorrow is the big day for Facebook, when it kicks off its annual f8 event in San Francisco. However, ahead of that it announced tweaks to its News Feed feature just hours after Google moved …
i was an unwilling recipient of the "new" facebook layout last week.
At the moment you have the choice between seeing "top News" or "Most Recent" in the new layout you DON'T get the choice.
I had to wade through 20-30 old posts Facebook had helpfully "pinned" to the top of the list, most were 5-8 hours old and I had already read them, and their is no "remove all option" so you have to manually go through all the pinned items to remove them before you get to your Latest entries.
Come back 10 mins later...
You have another 20-30 old posts pinned to the top of your feed... and it begins again...
their was no option to turn the "feature" off!
They changed me back to the old version a couple of days ago but don't know how long it will stay like that...
If I was interested in what had happened, I'd have logged in, or had an RSS feed or something.
I have a scroll bar, I can look back.
I currently have to have ?sk=lf at the end of my shortcut to FB to get the view I want.
I better be able to have this still and not have to rake around what facebook laughingly calls "top stories".
My brief flirtation with "social networks" is looking to be abbreviated further if they keep fiddling.
It's quite easy, FB has two options for your News Feed, the first is 'Top Stories' and the second is 'Latest news'.
If I want Top Stories, I click 'Top Stories'. Guess what I want if I click 'Latest News'...? yeah? listening...? I WANT LATEST NEWS not f^*^%&)ing TOP STORIES!
That's all, lesson over...
nK
Where is the option to click on either? I've spent the last several minutes hunting for such an option but haven't found it. Facebook's own help page does not say that you can choose between them either. It offers only this:
"We've combined the Top News and Most Recent stories together in a single News Feed view.
If you see top stories first when you load your News Feed, simply scroll down to see the recent stories."
Any directions on how to get this clickable option you describe would be very helpful.
Cleary Nanki Poo and all the upvoters have not been forcibly converted to the new format or they would know that those options disappeared. Unless as you say they were just buried somewhere so as to continue Facebook's long tradition of awful UI. Either way it's a stupid change because the Top Stories view was always useless in my experience, and nothing appears to have changed.
to be greeted by the new layout. The option to view either Top Stories or Latest News has been removed, so that I get Top Stories first, followed by Recent Stories, whether I want Top Stories or not (I don't, and never have).
Checking it again, now, and I have Recent Stories, followed by Earlier Today, which seems to be an exercise in inserting sub-headings where none are required.
I left FB and won't be back until they outgrow their adolescent stage, or at least pupate and stop being worms.
Not that they don't have some nice gadgets and gizmos, but they just don't behave like they understand that it is MY data and that they are merely custodians that are being allowed to use some of it in ways that I must approve of.
Zuckster and his merry men just don't get that, they think that it is their data and that they are doing me a big favour by letting me play with their bells and knobs.
Until they get their heads straight on this, I don't care how many shiny new fiddlebangs they add.
It could be worse. They could be posting just the first few words of all your friends updates, then when you click on 'more', you get "And first, a word from our sponsor with an exciting new offer!" and you have to sit through some marketing droids feeble attempt at a flash animation for a product you'd never buy.
I rarely get my panties in a twist with changes, as I can adapt. However, upon logging into Facebook I immediately had a 'WTF? Have Facebook just hired a bunch of Microsoft Engineers!?'. As others have commented, Top Stories is intermingled with News Feeds, with no indication of how Facebook determines what is a Top Story, and apparently no understanding of the importance of chronological order.
The side bar could have potentially been a good feature (click on an item in the side bar, and the story and all the corresponding posts appear) but there is no way to disable the side bar or the scroll-bar.
The most bizarre aspect is that both Top Stories and Latest News (not that I can distinguish between the two or any chronology) appear as a main news-feed and in the side-bar with NO option to disable.
I could handle the adverts and constant 'recommendations' of random acquaintances to be my friends, but not this change. The whole purpose is to be connected with friends and acquaintances and have control over my content. Now Facebook is using my content and that of my friends and telling me how it thinks my content should be used.
In the words of a Harry Enfield character, "OI! FACEBOOK! NOOOOOOOOO!".
Google must have spent today grabbing seats and bringing out the popcorn. I'm heading straight to Google+ this weekend, and migrating my images to Flickr.
Memo to Facebook: you're no longer the only game in town. You've just removed the one reason why people may be hesitant to migrate - keeping in contact with friends - because Google+ is suddenly going to become very, very popluar.
Storm in a thimble. Possibly a hurricane!!!!
I want dinosaurs back now. None of that there heretical evolution nonsense, trying to confuse my poor entropic brainmush.
If I wanted to change something, I'd change my socks. How very dare they alter anything on their site which i use for free 16 hours a day, without my express permission? Who do they think they are? Some vast global corporation with a profit motive? ....I have my suspicions.
I think all change should be banned, especially for the lazy conservative reactionary segment of the market. It took me nearly two years to learn how to work the photo uploader gizmo, so why should I have to go through that kind of ordeal twice in my life?
> FB has two options for your News Feed, the first is 'Top Stories' and the second is 'Latest news'.
> If I want Top Stories, I click 'Top Stories'. Guess what I want if I click 'Latest News'.
That's fine until FB roll you the new interface. Then you won't have the choice. That's what people are complaining about.
Create a new list. Call it 'All Updates'. Add all your friends to this new list. Click on it. Cut and paste URL from address bar to whatever favourites link (or whatever) you use when browsing to facebook. Much better (and you can use 'manage list' to remove all 'games' related entries as a bonus).
To all those migrating to G+, it's like a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea. You can either give Herr Zuck all your personal info, with at least the chance to keep some of it private (if you keep on top of any changes to privacy settings). Or you can go to G+ and become very visible in searches. Neither option seems very palatable right now.
Choice? Dream on!
Speak to them offline. You know, face to face*.
That's it.
Also the algorithm probably wouldn't be needed if Facebook users didn't insist on creating "friends" lists with hundreds of people they met one time 10 years ago. Do I want to look at photos of someones wedding I wasn't invited to because I didn't really know them? Probably not, but that's just me!
* Yes, I understand that for people separated by large distances it's not practical but there are communication methods other than social networking sites.
Click the little pencil icon to the left of news feed, then for each and every contact modify the updates to view to 'all' and optionally deselect useless updates (such as games).
Took me about 10 minutes to wade through all my contacts, but at least I can see everything now.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
