Meta has spent the previous few years remaking Fb’s primary feed right into a “discovery engine” that primarily serves up beneficial content material from pages, teams and accounts customers don’t already comply with. However whereas the corporate has mentioned the change is important to compete with TikTok, it’s additionally pissed off Fb customers who miss seeing posts from individuals they really know.
Now, Meta is making an attempt to treatment this with a revamped “Associates” part of the app that may solely present posts and content material associated to your Fb mates. The corporate says the replace is the primary of many meant to carry “OG” options again into the 21-year-old social community.
With the replace, the “Associates” tab of the Fb app that used to solely be for buddy requests will now be house to a feed completely made up of content material associated to your folks. This contains feed and Story posts, in addition to Reels, birthdays, buddy requests and “individuals you could know ideas.”
Whereas Meta is spinning the change as part of a bigger push to make Fb really feel extra “social,” it’s not the primary time the corporate has supplied devoted feeds for “buddy solely” content material. In reality, Mark Zuckerberg confirmed off devoted “mates” feed in 2022 amid the corporate’s push to carry extra suggestions to customers’ “house” feeds. That feed, which surfaces posts from mates in reverse chronological order, remains to be accessible, although it’s considerably buried within the app.
It’s not clear what else Meta has in retailer for different “OG” Fb options that might play on nostalgia for the 21-year-old social community. (Fb’s as soon as notorious “poke” function already had a quick resurgence final yr.) Nevertheless it’s apparently a precedence for Zuckerberg.
“I truly suppose that there's this complete alternative that I believe goes to be fairly enjoyable to to go after and construct which is simply to sort of go one-by-one and construct up a a bunch of this stuff that was once these joyful experiences that individuals had as a part of Fb that simply sort of don't exist on the web at this time,” Zuckerberg mentioned in a podcast look selling the change.
This text initially appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/mark-zuckerberg-decides-content-from-your-actual-friends-is-an-og-facebook-feature-180803853.html?src=rss
