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Facebook to Change News Feed to Focus on Friends and Family

nytimes.com

91–100 of 123 posts

Re: Facebook to Change News Feed to Focus on Friends and Family

#91
IMHO what is likely happening is that FB is trying to change things because of recent world events. I'll admit that I've stopped going to FB often because it's filled with very depressing news events. Some of it comes from pages I follow or friends of mine, but overall it's just filled with depressing content. So perhaps they're hoping the community will post more positive life experiences.

Re: Facebook to Change News Feed to Focus on Friends and Family

#92
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I help run a site that is completely dependent on links from large facebook pages/groups. Basically because it's almost 100% clickbait with some classic buzzfeed-kind of crap. This change has potential to bring the income way down from that site.

It sounds like you already realize this is a good move for everyone else, it just sucks for you.

Yeah, when even the employees can't resist calling the content 'crap', you know the world is better off without it.

Re: Facebook to Change News Feed to Focus on Friends and Family

#93

I am so tired of seeing "things my friends liked" as essentially my only stream of posts. The sponsored posts haven't been too bad, but around 80% of my news feed is "John liked this" (picture of someone I've never met), "Mary commented on an article" (some stupid comment like an emoji), "Sam reacted to a photo" (picture posted by Sam's friend of a friend who again, I've never met). I think in the last week I've seen…

I would really like an option of hiding "things my friends liked". I constantly click on "Hide this post" to see if the algorithm can learn from that, but it doesn't happen.

Re: Facebook to Change News Feed to Focus on Friends and Family

#94
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For very local or niche businesses I would say you're right. It's much easier, and cheaper for them and their customer to just maintain a Facebook page, rather than trying to build a website. I don't see a way for Facebook making money of these companies though. It's the companies that bring the audience to Facebook in this case, not the other way around. Facebook in these cases are just a glorified mailing lists. Fo…

> For mainstream businesses, like chain supermarket, Coca Cola and car makers, I still maintain it's wasted effort. I'm working at one of top digital advertising agencies in EU. National and global brands save no buck on their spending on social media presence, and there are plenty of cheap (for them) tricks that result in both additional sales, positive PR and new customers. We also have strong data to back this up…

I'll assume you're right, because you actually work with this.

A few questions on the Snapchat thing, if you don't mind: Aren't you just "buying" interaction with the prospect of a potential price? Does it actually increase sales figures significantly, long term and beyond the people that participated? Wouldn't the participant have been very likely to buy the product anyway? I mean they already follow the brand on Snapchat.

Re: Facebook to Change News Feed to Focus on Friends and Family

#95
post #93

I am so tired of seeing "things my friends liked" as essentially my only stream of posts. The sponsored posts haven't been too bad, but around 80% of my news feed is "John liked this" (picture of someone I've never met), "Mary commented on an article" (some stupid comment like an emoji), "Sam reacted to a photo" (picture posted by Sam's friend of a friend who again, I've never met). I think in the last week I've seen…

I would really like an option of hiding "things my friends liked". I constantly click on "Hide this post" to see if the algorithm can learn from that, but it doesn't happen.

Hide the source. "Mary liked this" hide all from HuffPo, "Steve liked this" hide all from Energy Crystals Whatever, "Joe liked this" hide all from Sue McWhoever (you've never met her anyway).

My feed is much more manageable since I started hiding just about all the pages, leaving it pretty much solely picture and text posts of people I know.

Re: Facebook to Change News Feed to Focus on Friends and Family

#96
post #69

That is 10 years overdue and the main reason I closed my account years ago. It was like looking at a sponsored gawker newsfeed. Today people do not even mention it anymore. Wether i meet new people or when i connect with old friends. Facebook disappeared from my life as quickly as it came in. Do HN people still use Facebook?

Yes. I was out for 2 years, but during this time, I pretty much lost contact with everyone not in my work circle. Even some family members on different cities.

So I got back. I rarely browse the timeline. My phone only has the Messenger installed.

And as I said in an earlier comment, small business pretty much depend on it where I live. People don't browse the web anymore, they just use facebook (and it's sad and pathetic..)

Re: Facebook to Change News Feed to Focus on Friends and Family

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But your friends are going to discuss current events, because that is what people do.

No, they're not. None of my friends that care about current events really use Facebook, but if I want a picture of a forklift, bacon, or anything else that was on Imgur last week, Facebook is right there for me. Honestly it's pretty hard do discus Facebook, what Facebook does, what it's used for and how people see it, because it's so different from person to person.

> No, they're not. None of my friends that care about current events really use Facebook

you are really lucky

Re: Facebook to Change News Feed to Focus on Friends and Family

#98
post #95
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would really like an option of hiding "things my friends liked". I constantly click on "Hide this post" to see if the algorithm can learn from that, but it doesn't happen.

Hide the source. "Mary liked this" hide all from HuffPo, "Steve liked this" hide all from Energy Crystals Whatever, "Joe liked this" hide all from Sue McWhoever (you've never met her anyway). My feed is much more manageable since I started hiding just about all the pages, leaving it pretty much solely picture and text posts of people I know.

I'd do that, but it would be a battle fought daily, one at a time, against individual friends of friends you never met... A "Hide all posts from friends of friends" option would be great but not that interesting for Facebook.

Re: Facebook to Change News Feed to Focus on Friends and Family

#99
post #54

All I want from facebook is a time-ordered list of everything all my friends post. No filtering, no reordering by 'importance', no weighting by how often I 'like' or respond. No "you clicked off the page and back, we're gonna show you different stuff!". Just a simple time-ordered list. Apparently this desire is wrong.

I too would like that, but with a filter so that I can remove babies, religion and politics.

Re: Facebook to Change News Feed to Focus on Friends and Family

#100

I guess they need to do something to increase engagement because - anecdotally, yes - the amount of sharing and engagement in my feed has dropped dramatically in recent years. A rough guess would be ~3/4 of the content I see now are just likes/reactions and comments my friends made on other content (usually articles or memes). I'm sure most of my friends have no idea I'm seeing this, and if they did they would probab…

> I'm sure most of my friends have no idea I'm seeing this, and if they did they would probably interact with FB even less. I'm very hesitant to interact with FB at all now, and just do a quick scroll through every other day. That's exactly how I feel. Facebook shows to me, to the right side of the screen, a feed of all the comments and likes my friends make everywhere on the site, even on pages I don't like or on wa…

same here. It used to be on the right side of the screen only, but now some of them appear on people's timeline as well. If you like someone's recent posts you will start seeing more of what they comment on other random posts. It makes me reluctant to comment anywhere as well because of this.
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