Facebook News Feed Update – You may have noticed a few changes this morning when you signed into Facebook. There is a layout change for one, but the major change is the Facebook News Feed. You’ll notice that you now have Top Stories, which are marked by a blue corner, and then your most recent stories just below.
So, what is a top story exactly? Facebook is pulling stories into your news feed that they think you will find interesting or that have been posted since you last signed in.
The news feed updates got me thinking about what the affect on the Facebook EdgeRank score would be, if it would change, or if it even mattered anymore since you would just get most recent updates. However, according to Facebook, “We determine whether something is a top story based on lots of factors, including your relationship to the person who posted the story, how many comments and likes it got, what type of story it is, etc. For example, a friend’s status update that might not normally be a top story may become a top story after many other friends comment on it.” So, my guess is that the Facebook EdgeRank score is still VERY important when it comes to showing up in someone’s top news feed.
If Facebook is pointing out something to you in your News Feed that you don’t think is interesting, they have made it very simple to hide or “unmark a top story”. Also, you will have more control over what you see in your news feed by creating Facebook Smart Lists.
The Facebook Real Time Ticker: The ticker will show real time friend activity as it happens to the right of your screen just above your chat list. This feature allows you to hover over an item to see the full story and also gives you an option to click in and join the conversation or comment. 
Larger Images: Facebook has made the images that show up in your news feed larger. And, who doesn’t love that??!!
Subscribe Feeds: Facebook has added a subscribe feature to personal profiles. What this means is that you can allow people to subscribe to your updates. This is very much like a twitter follow. Like within Twitter you can follow someone without them following you back. Same thing when you follow or subscribe to a Facebook personal feed. It’s important to note that you will only be sharing information with subscribers that you post as a public update. This is probably one of the tweaks that Facebook has added that most closely resembles Google+.
View Shares: Lastly, Facebook has updated Facebook Pages by adding a ‘View Shares’ link on all posts. So, you can now see who has shared content from your page with others.
The battle rages on between Facebook and Google+. Who is going to have the better platform? Who is going to lose or gain users? Which platform will be more important from a business standpoint to have a profile on? My guess is that there is room for both and the battle will continue, which is a good thing for the end user. The more they try to one up each other the better product we have to use at the end of the day.
What are your thoughts on the new Facebook updates?
Joan Woodbrey Crocker
Enjoying the Battle
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