Mark Zuckerberg and friends took to the stage on September 22, 2011 at the F8 Developer Summit in San Francisco, CA to update developers and businesses that build products around Facebook on what's to come. I was able to sit in on the live feed as well as a follow-up webinar called ‘Revolutionizing The Second Internet’ that featured Rick Marini, CEO, BranchOut, Reggie Bradford, CEO, Vitrue, David Berkowitz, VP, Emerging Media & Innovation, 360i, and Justin Kistner, Director of Social Products, Webtrends.
Facebook’s team announced an ambitious series of features including an updated version of the Newsfeed, Timeline, Ticker, and a New Class of Apps that will greatly enhance the platform and potentially have a far-reaching impact on how 800 million people use the web. The news is very exciting for For Rent Media Solutions and our clients that are using Marketplace on Facebook to showcase listings. The growth is rapid on Facebook, and these new modifications are bringing their product to the next level. Let’s focus on the four major changes Facebook has introduced:
1. Updated Version of Newsfeed
Facebook rolled out an updated version of the Newsfeed that does away with the two-tabbed interface. Before users had to swap between Top Stories (a feed of stories Facebook reasoned to be important) and Most Recent (a feed of your friends’ most recent actions on the site). Facebook wanted a more optimal solution for users and therefore decided to merge to the two together into the same feed. Facebook’s Newsfeed is getting smarter and is able to determine how much screen real estate to allocate to Top Stories’ based on how recently you’ve logged into the site. If you’re checking Facebook a bunch of times during the day, then most of the items in your feed should be recent. But, if you are checking Facebook every few days, then your Newsfeed will be filled with the most important things your friends have shared.
One of my favorite enhancements to the Newsfeed is that I can manually tell Facebook if they missed an important story by clicking on the blue triangle in the upper left hand corner of the post, and I can also flag those that are not important as well.
From a marketing perspective, the most noteworthy information released at F8 was that not all posts made to Facebook will reach the Recent Stories section and that there is a minimum threshold. Clearly, Facebook is trying to make its streams more relevant, and Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm will play a major role in making that happen. For those that may be unfamiliar with EdgeRank, this is Facebook’s formula for deciding what users see in their Newsfeed. In the past, marketers were able to strategically create content for placement in the Newsfeed’s Top News, so fans could clearly see the company’s message. For instance, news posted on your wall that incorporated a photograph and got dozens of comments received a higher affinity score than a simple text update with a few “Likes.” Basically, the more photos, links, comments, and likes you had, the higher your content could rank.
Same is true today. Now, with Facebook’s new hybrid Newsfeed, it’s important to get your updates marked as Top Stories. However, with a minimum threshold, this adds yet another layer of pressure. It now becomes more important than ever to get your update to Recent Stories before worrying about advancing on to becoming a Top Story.
In effect, a user must answer two questions to effectively navigate past two thresholds on Facebook (both a high and low threshold) for prime positioning:
This can be seen as a potential plus for brands that can cut through the noise by posting high quality content. There is a large opportunity for brands to be more strategic about what they push out. Check out our article on ‘Using a Content Calendar to Make Posting Easy’ for tips on how to create engaging content to help you rank higher in the Newsfeed.
2. Timeline
With Timeline updates documenting a Facebook user’s life story, marketers will easily be able to identify patterns in activity of potential customers. Five years ago, Facebook was an introduction to who you were. Next came the Newsfeed, which added more to the conversation. But the Timeline will soon fill in the rest of the dialogue. The Timeline will also allow for the discovery of new things in real time, which in turn will help marketers find patterns and activity. It will look completely different, with a new focus on photos and events. Users choose what activities they'd like to share in their continuous stream that highlights moments from their life—starting from their first day on Facebook all the way up to present day.
The announcement certainly got savvy Facebook users salivating over the new look. I was fortunate enough to get my Timeline by registering with Facebook as an app developer. Below is a snapshot of my before and after profile. Only users that have the Timeline implemented can see my Timeline and vice versa.
So everyone is waiting to learn when Facebook Timeline will be released to the public. Facebook employees suggest the company is aiming for an “end of the year” rollout. They claim that they are still testing with developers and hope to roll it out for wider testing before the end of the year. Meanwhile, a December court date has been set in the trademark fight between Facebook and website Timelines.com. However, it is very possible that the delay is part of a deliberate strategy by Facebook to introduce the feature gradually, which might be a smart move considering the company’s history with its users being reluctant to embrace dramatic changes on the site.
3. Ticker
The Ticker, a small real-time newsfeed, will persistently bring more exposure to posts. Ticker includes live stories—things like status updates, friendships, photos, videos, links, likes, and comments. You can see this activity elsewhere on Facebook—Ticker just lets you see it as it happens. Users will need to be active in their Facebook posts in order to show up in the Ticker. Frequent posts will generate more activity due to the Ticker showing the real-time information at a glance, with the ability to mouse over the Ticker and see the entire conversation in a pop-out window. This will allow for a greater opportunity for friends or clients to see what you have to say.
I personally think this feature will be friendlier for brands. A lot of brand content that consumers like will end up in here as well. Most likely, consumers do not want to see daily updates from a brand on Facebook, so they will hide that content from their Newsfeed, unless they click over to the "most recent" tab on the screen. This could cause posts from brands to never get seen. However, the Ticker helps this since every story gets posted and scrolls by. Some users are complaining about this change, but I’m sure this will pass and it will ultimately cause brands to create better content. You can’t actually close the Ticker, but you can resize it by moving the horizontal bar between the Ticker and chat up and down.
4. New Class of Apps
The new class of apps really proves that the next five years will be focused around Facebook apps. This will cause for a shift in focus and evolve the lifestyle of apps. Marketers will also put more focus into content and apps that will make a larger impact on the consumer. Media apps will also increase in popularity, with the increasing importance of sharing ability. The central idea here is that users can now share what they're doing in Facebook-connected apps as they're doing it. See the below screenshot where I am using Marketplace on Facebook, and I can see what other apps my friends are using in real time.
These changes ultimately mean that time spent on Facebook by users will increase. In turn, advertisers’ listings and posts on Facebook pages will have even more of an opportunity to be seen.
All of the changes announced at F8 show us just how sophisticated and advanced social media is becoming. If you happen to have missed the live feed from the Developer Summit, you can learn more about F8 at https://f8.facebook.com/.