Dec 22, 2024
News

Meta’s Facebook is Rebuilding the Main Feed to Attract Younger Users

Meta Platforms announced on Thursday that it has redesigned its main feed for Facebook apps to prioritize “discovery” of new content rather than postings from accounts that users are following.

Meta-executives have expressed a growing urgency in recent months to promote their “reel” products, as well as TikTok’s short video format, which has captivated many young users.

In a statement, Meta said that Facebook’s main news feed tab, “Home,” which users see when they open the app, will start with most popular posts from accounts that users don’t follow.

Facebook added that it would use a machine learning ranking system to suggest posts to users and invest in artificial intelligence (AI) to provide recommended content. Another new tab, called a “feed,” provides a break from the old approach, which primarily features posts from friends, pages, and groups that users are actively following.

The feeds on this tab are displayed in chronological order without personalized rankings, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post.

According to Meta, the feed does not include suggested posts, but it does include ads. The world’s largest social media companies have focused on algorithm recommendations in recent months as the TikTok threat has grown. This is a significant change from the 218 plan to publish more posts from friends and family in the news feed.

The Instagram app announced a more “immersive” Tik Tokstyle viewing experience trial in May, with Zuckerberg investing heavily in investors in April to support Meta’s “discovery engine” approach.

Earlier this month, Chief Product Officer Chris Cox told employees that it plans to quintuple the number of graphics processing units (GPUs) in the data center by the end of the year to provide AI with additional processing power.