The latest evolution of Facebook's News Feed focuses heavily on images and allows users to easily filter their feed depending on what they want to see at any given time.
The social media giant unveiled the new look Thursday at its headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., and the changes will begin to roll out immediately for desktop users and in coming weeks for mobile and tablet. The new look will be the same across all three platforms.
The changes to the newsfeed appear intended to keep users scanning and interacting longer on Facebook, with larger, crisper images driving the new look.
"In the News Feed redesign, we're taking images and making them front and centre," said Facebook’s director of design, Julie Zhou. "And this isn't just for individual photos, we're also giving the photo albums you share a major facelift."
The changes are also designed to be attractive to advertisers. If you like a Taylor Swift video in your News Feed, for example, Facebook will now automatically populate your feed with other articles, videos and pictures of Swift. That could appeal to corporations wishing to target specific interest groups.
The new design will also allow users to choose what appears in their News Feed, depending on what they're searching for.
The News Feed can be filtered by the following categories:
- All friends -- shows every single post from every friend
- Photos -- a feed that includes only pictures
- Music -- a feed with posts about the music the user listens to
- Following -- a feed with the latest news from pages the user follows
Facebook's Chris Cox said the changes have been in development for months, and were largely inspired by mobile design.
