Facebook has sent out invitations for a press event on 7 March, with the tagline "come see a new look for News Feed".
The last major redesign of the News Feed was implemented in 2011 along with the introduction of the Timeline layout for user profiles. Since then, many tweaks and updates have been made, but the overall look and feel has remained the same.
While details of exactly what Facebook will be unveiling are few and far between, speculation ranges from a new mobile News Feed, to a redesigned single-column Timeline layout.
In January, TechCrunch reported on a radically different mobile News Feed that was at the time only available in an employee-only iOS app. The redesign is reportedly a huge departure from the blue and white layout, which essentially is a condensed version of the full Web experience, currently used in the Facebook mobile apps.
"Reminiscent of Flipboard, Google+ for iPad, and Microsoft Metro, the fresh design could make Facebook's feed exciting again," said TechCrunch. It has also been reported that Facebook has indicated it will make big changes to the mobile experience and news feed this year.
Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly emphasised the fact that Facebook is now a 'mobile first' company, so a redesign of the mobile interface could be on the cards.
Another possible announcement the social network could make this week is the official rollout of the single-column Timeline design. The redesign already went live for New Zealand users in January. Facebook has a history of testing new features among users in New Zealand first before implementing a major rollout.
The new design reportedly simplifies the Timeline layout, creating a wider left-hand column which includes all status updates and messages from friends, while a narrower right-hand column is used for third-party apps and activity updates. This marks a shift away from the current Timeline design in which all posts and activities are posted in chronological order, and the user can adjust the size of each element - meaning the overall effect is often crowded and difficult to navigate.
User interaction
News of this week's imminent announcement from Facebook follows debates in the media over declining user interaction on the social network and whether Facebook is still "cool".
In a post by Nick Bilton of the New York Times, he notes that when Facebook first introduced the "subscribe" option, he quickly amassed over 25 000 followers and his public posts would garner hundreds of 'likes' and interactions. Bilton's followers on Facebook now exceed 400 000 people, but he says he has noticed a sharp decline in interactions - now averaging just 30 likes and two shares per post. Bilton says he has observed the same drop in interaction on other journalists' and writers' pages.
"What changed? I recently tried a little experiment. I paid Facebook $7 to promote my column to my friends using the company's sponsored advertising tool.
"To my surprise, I saw a 1 000% increase in the interaction on a link I posted, which had 130 likes and 30 reshares in just a few hours. It seems as if Facebook is not only promoting my links on news feeds when I pay for them, but also possibly suppressing the ones I do not pay for."
According to Bilton, Facebook says it is still working on finding the right balance between showing relevant content and paid-for content in users' news feeds. Since its IPO, the social network has been under increasing pressure to find methods to best monetise the service and to provide measurable ROI for advertisers.
While Facebook claims the average amount of feedback on posts from people with over 10 000 subscribers is up 34% year-on-year, it also admits that there has been a 2% drop in interaction on the news feed.
The cool factor
Last month, Facebook's annual report acknowledged that it was falling out of favour with younger users: "We believe that some of our users, particularly our younger users, are aware of and actively engaging with other products and services similar to, or as a substitute for, Facebook. For example, we believe that some of our users have reduced their engagement with Facebook in favour of increased engagement with other products and services such as Instagram. In the event that our users increasingly engage with other products and services, we may experience a decline in user engagement and our business could be harmed."
When Facebook's director of product, Blake Ross, resigned recently he also wrote a post on his own Facebook page explaining about his departure, saying: "I'm leaving because a Forbes writer asked his son's best friend Todd if Facebook was still cool and the friend said no, and plus none of HIS friends think so either even Leila who used to love it, and this journalism made me reconsider the long-term viability of the company." Ross subsequently pulled the post.
Founder of new social start-up Branch, Josh Miller, also recently wrote a post titled "Tenth Grade Tech Trends" where he sought to find out how teenagers are using technologies and services. Miller said his 15-year-old sister told him that she tries to visit Facebook as infrequently as possible.
"'It's addicting,' she bemoaned, 'you end up getting lost in it and I don't like that.' I found this perspective interesting. Facebook is clearly doing a good job delivering relevant content, yet its users (at least this one) feel poorly when they use the service. Related, she mentioned that she only visits Facebook after her Instagram Feed updates have been exhausted. My takeaway: Facebook may have an irreversibly bad brand."
The same sentiment was also found by the creator of a social photo album app, Adam Ludwin, who conducted a focus group with people below the age of 25 before launching his app. The most common complaint from respondents was that the app relied too heavily on Facebook.
"They gave me the typical teenage response: 'We're bored with Facebook,'" says Ludwin.
Zuckerberg stated unequivocally back in 2011 that Facebook no longer measures its success on user numbers, but rather on user engagement. As a result, the social network is now clearly under pressure to get users to engage with content - and to present the content in a more engaging way. It will remain to be seen if a redesigned news feed can accomplish this.
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