Facebook puts concentrate on photos in new look; might boost ads.

Facebook puts concentrate on photos

MENLO PARK, CA - Facebook INC introduced the largest amendment in years to its fashionable newsfeed on Th, with a brand new look and target photos that's expected to form the social network additional ad-friendly and should lure users to pay longer on the web site.

The changes to the newsfeed, whose look and feel had remained mostly unchanged since Facebook's beginning, embrace a division into many sections, with separate areas for pictures and music.

The newsfeed is that the dynamical stream of photos, videos and comments uploaded from friends, and is that the 1st page most users see upon work in.

Facebook Chief govt Mark Zuckerberg aforesaid the makeover was a part of an endeavor to position the social network as a "personalized newspaper," complete with completely different sections for users to explore.
Facebook puts concentrate on photos
It comes with a revamped interface that provides additional prominence to visual media, like photos and videos.

The makeover comes roughly a month when Facebook introduced a brand new social search feature it dubbed "graph search" that creates it easier for the social network's quite one billion users to get additional content on the social network.

The much-needed changes undraped on Th, that standardize the network's look out over differing types of desktop and mobile devices, bring Facebook up-to-date as Google+, the abundant younger social network started by Google INC, begins to include additional video and pictures.

"This is simply attending to give additional chance for individuals to click around and stick around," aforesaid Brian Blau, associate analyst with business analysis firm Gartner, concerning the revamped newsfeed.

"The newsfeed was quite obsolete. this kind of brings it up to perhaps what is akin to...their competition, and partner sites that area unit specializing in media and richness."

Facebook's newsfeed is one in every of 3 "pillars" of the service, along side search and user profiles.

The updated newsfeed provides more room for the photos and videos that users share on the network, and provides a additional consistent look and feel between the version for PCs and for mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. The changes can begin rolling enter restricted fashion from Th, Facebook aforesaid.
Facebook puts concentrate on photos
Facebook executives say the updates can facilitate keep organized the increasing jumble of content accessible on the social network as its user base grows.

The last major update to the feature occurred in September 2011. Since then, the corporate has incorporated ads directly into the feed and has shifted its focus to making "mobile-first experiences," as a result of additional individuals currently access the social network from smartphones than from desktop computers.

FACEBOOK VERSUS GOOGLE

Marketers are going to be ready to fashion additional compelling ads because of the inflated property for photos, aforesaid Hussein Fazal, the chief govt of AdParlor, a firm that helps firms advertise on Facebook. "Larger pictures can lead to higher click through-rates, a {better|the next} level of engagement and better performance," Fazal wrote in associate email.

Still, analysts say the corporate has to tread fastidiously to avoid inundating users' varied feeds with advertising, as Facebook tries to sustain a fast pace of growth that helped it debut on public markets at the highest-ever valuation for a technology company.
Facebook puts concentrate on photos
The world's largest social network is moving to regain Wall Street's confidence when its unskilled commerce last year, addressing issues concerning its long-run prospects - several of that center on associate industry-wide shift toward the utilization of mobile devices.

Facebook shares, that area unit still quite 1 / 4 off their commerce worth of $38, closed up four % at $28.57 on Th on the data system.

Facebook and Google, that each got their begin on desktop computers, area unit currently managing a transition of their product onto smartphones and tablets, which generally yield less revenue than on PCs.

The two web mainstays are waging a war for revenue in mobile advertising - a market that's still tiny compared with the normal desktop however that's growing exponentially.

In terms of overall mobile advertising, Google commanded a fifty three.5 % share in 2012, power-assisted by its dominance in search-based ads. Facebook had simply eight.4 percent, a foreign competitor, in keeping with estimates from analysis house eMarketer.

But in terms of mobile show ad sales, Facebook narrowly edges out its rival with eighteen.4 % of the market versus Google's seventeen %, the analysis outfit calculable.

PRESSURE ON THE SYSTEM

The makeover is partially prompted by complaints concerning increasing litter on Facebook's network.

As Facebook has fully grown to quite one billion users, the number of content that users and corporations post to the web site has surged. Facebook users solely see atiny low portion of that content, culled by Facebook's proprietary algorithmic program.

In recent months, some firms and users, as well as bourgeois Mark Cuban, have grumbled that their content wasn't obtaining enough exposure within the newsfeed, as a result of Facebook provides paid ads priority within the newsfeed.

Facebook's vp of product, Chris Cox, acknowledged that there was "more pressure on the system" to feature the varied content, as Facebook has fully grown in size.

The additional newsfeeds give additional opportunities for content to seem before of users. A images-only feed displays footage shared by a user's connections on Facebook yet as on Facebook-owned Instagram and alternative photo apps that area unit integrated with the social network.

A revamped version of associate existing however little-used Music feed aggregates the songs that a user's friends area unit taking note of, associated includes posts from bands and performers within which a user has expressed an interest.

Facebook conjointly introduced a "Friends Only" feed that displays each message shared by a user's friends in written account order -- instead of chosen by associate algorithmic program -- yet as a "Following" feed that gathers posts from news publishers, celebrities, sports groups and alternative teams or businesses that a user subscribes to.

"The basic plan is usually you would like 5 minutes and you would like to examine the highest stuff, generally you would like to pay associate hour and undergo plenty of various stuff," Cox aforesaid in associate interview when the event.

The additional feeds might conjointly give Facebook with more room to supply ads on its newsfeed, although a interpreter aforesaid the extra news feeds wouldn't ab initio feature ads.