For a while, Facebook only ever dealt with the social aspects of people's profiles - what you were doing, photos of you, what you like etc. Then came the apps and their own updates, infiltrating everyone's new feeds with all kinds of new information about what games people were playing and what they were doing.
Although Facebook apps, in particular gaming apps, have proved to be very popular, only 40% of Facebook users are on the site for gaming, meaning that 60% are there for other reasons. Logging in to Facebook only to find your news feed dominated by games you're not interested in is not what everyone wants and clearly Facebook want to address this issue.
Mark Zuckerberg himself, CEO & President of Facebook, said he wants "as few people as possible come to the site and have negative experiences". It should come as little surprise then that Facebook has released a new blog post detailing what the new Facebook features they've just launched to deal with this:
"In real life, if one of your friends plays FarmVille and you don't, they probably wouldn't come up to you and say 'Hey, I just got this new cow on my farm,'" he explains. "They might say 'Hey, I found this new game that's really cool that you should check out.'
Source: Facebook Blog
Although Facebook apps, in particular gaming apps, have proved to be very popular, only 40% of Facebook users are on the site for gaming, meaning that 60% are there for other reasons. Logging in to Facebook only to find your news feed dominated by games you're not interested in is not what everyone wants and clearly Facebook want to address this issue.
Mark Zuckerberg himself, CEO & President of Facebook, said he wants "as few people as possible come to the site and have negative experiences". It should come as little surprise then that Facebook has released a new blog post detailing what the new Facebook features they've just launched to deal with this:
- Full stories in News Feed so they won't miss when a friend shares an action or needs help in a game. The more active a person is in a game, the more prominent the stories will be.
- Smarter bookmarks on the home page that will automatically appear and reorder based on the games they're playing. They will no longer need to individually bookmark apps, and it will be easier to get to favorite apps.
- A clearer, highlighted number for pending requests or tasks alongside bookmarks.
- Requests in the Games Dashboard, where they can manage all their game activity and discover new games.
"In real life, if one of your friends plays FarmVille and you don't, they probably wouldn't come up to you and say 'Hey, I just got this new cow on my farm,'" he explains. "They might say 'Hey, I found this new game that's really cool that you should check out.'
Source: Facebook Blog