Facebook making photos more prominent
Benny Evangelista
Updated 7:28 pm, Thursday, March 7, 2013
Mark Zuckerberg announces a redesign of Facebook's News Feed, Thursday, March 7, 2013 in Menlo Park, Calif.Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle
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MENLO PARK --
Facebook Thursday showed off a major face-lift for its centerpiece News Feed, placing greater emphasis on the photos and other visual elements that members of the social network are increasingly posting.
The company's biggest redesign of the News Feed since it was introduced in 2006 will make Facebook more like a "personalized newspaper," with a less cluttered look and easier access to specific topics like news and sports, Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said during a news conference.
"We believe that the best personalized newspaper should be visual and rich and engaging because the stories around you are intricate and detailed and they deserve to be displayed with more than just text," Zuckerberg said.
The News Feed is the first page most members see when they log on, but the face-lift has wide-ranging effects throughout Facebook. And while the News Feed started as mostly text-based posts, the "evolving face" of Facebook is now more than half photos, videos or other visuals. Zuckerberg said that trend began to escalate in 2011.
Facebook has been publicly concerned that its younger users might migrate to other social networking services, such as Instagram - the photo-sharing service Facebook bought last year - or the photo-centric site Pinterest. Rival Google+, which also tweaked its design this week, highlights photos too.
"In our new design, we're giving these images and these rich visuals a lot more prominence so that what we see on Facebook better reflects the experience that you'll get on Pinterest," said Facebook design director Julie Zhuo. "We really are taking these photos and putting them front and center."
The changes are being rolled out slowly to Facebook's more than 1 billion members around the world so the Menlo Park company can gather feedback. That feedback could be considerable, since in the past, even minor tweaks have caused members to complain and even threaten to quit.
More icons
In a press conference in the company's Menlo Park headquarters, Facebook demonstrated the new News Feed, which is supposed to give the social network a cleaner, more uniform look across desktop PCs, mobile phones and tablets.
The change keeps the basic three-column format, but gives more real estate to the main column in the center, with photos displayed about 50 percent larger. Member profile photos are also larger, and logos and stories shared by brands are more prominent.
The navigation column on the left side of the page starts out narrower, with text labels replaced by mobile phone-style app icons and profile photos, but it expands to reveal the text labels when the cursor rolls on top.
The links are basically the same as before, although Facebook's algorithms highlight a member's main activities, heavily used apps and closest friends. The left bar includes a calendar icon familiar to smartphone users.
The running news ticker, a live feed of posts and comments that friends are making, is supposed to be consolidated into the left navigation column.
The left column won't be customizable, at least not initially. But the top of the right-hand column will include customizable quick links, such as "all friends," "photos" and "music." Those pull up posts, recent pictures or songs into the center column.
Ad impact unknown
Facebook executives compared it to a newspaper having sections like sports or business that readers can pull out and read right away.
The right-hand column will continue to display advertising and other sponsored content, but will look more like a smaller, secondary news feed.
The design seems to leave room for more visual advertising content as well, which down the line could be vital for Facebook as it tries to placate investors and generate more revenue from ads without them being overly intrusive. Facebook executives skirted questions about what the redesign might mean for advertising.
Andreas Pouros, chief operating officer of London digital marketing agency Greenlight, said in an e-mail that the redesign will encourage Facebook members to stay on the site longer and that could be good for advertisers.
"Facebook has taken the success of advertising in peoples' news feeds on mobile and based its News Feed redesign on mirroring that format, or close to it, on all devices," Pouros said. "This should boost revenue."
'Mobile-inspired'
But Sarah Carter, general manager of Actiance, a Belmont social media management company, said the new design makes it easier for people to skip content from businesses.
"While this is good for a consumer ... it doesn't help a business, or a business user," Carter said. "The flip side is that the new design is meant to get people browsing for longer and improve the overall Facebook experience. So if a business is able to effectively market to its audience on this channel, using content that is visual, relevant and spoken in an authentic voice, the return on investment should be greater."
David-Michel Davies, executive director of the Webby Awards, said in an interview that Facebook needed to modernize its look or eventually lose members to competitors.
Chris Cox, Facebook's vice president of product, said the face-lift is a "very mobile-inspired design." That's also key to the company's future, because more than half of its members now access the service on a mobile device.
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Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/technology/article/Facebook-making-photos-more-prominent-4337294.php#ixzz2N5OTljsQ
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