Being a frequent user of Facebook over the years. I have experienced the same up’s and down’s and feelings of outrage over some latest changes that has been forced upon the users over the years. It occurred to me just what I think we are all missing in our news feed.
We have learned to Love and Hate both the RECENT and the TOP Stories.. Top stories are chosen by the system according to our LIKES over the years. Predictive selection for our reading is really what it is. RECENT newsfeed reflects the posts and stories from our friends that has had some kind of post, like or response. This will pop back to the top of this list if it’s a heated debate for days.
What I feel is missing is a RECENT Stories list that only reflects the MOST recent POST without any activity figuring into to it. The ability to selectively chose a date for RECENT or TOP Stories would also be desirable. I’m not proposing REPLACING what we already have but adding the ability to be able to search our feed’s and timelines by date and time rapidly from our news feed.
Why I’ve coming to this conclusion has a lot to do with something my wife got me started into a bit ago. The Facebook online Virtual Garage Sales.. Each time an individual will post something in one of the groups, the thread pop’s back to the top of the group. It can make it difficult to find the most recent items being added. I had noticed the same thing occurring as of late in the newsfeed as well.
This kind of sorting and searching of feeds, groups and stories is something that even Google has started to realize with the amount of information and data. Their recent addition to their search engines advances search options with a date has become valuable to find the latest info on information searches.
Users, desire a quick way to access their data via dates and times as the amount of data grows on these services a user has used for multiple year. The timeline is far to slow to sift and sort thru to find items or posts.
Another item missing is a way to be able to make suggestions to Facebook. Outside of the surveys the some times dropped on select folks feeds to get their opinions on possible ideas for how to embed the next type of AD in the feed.
A users ADVISORY panel or even a submission section for what we would like to see added, changed, replaced or brought back with the ability to VOTE much akin to locations like REDDIT or some of the MMO’s would give the developers at Facebook and idea of what their users want and would support change wise in the service. That would be a cost savings seems to me as they could focus on what to Roll out and not just GUESS at what they think users desire the most.
This panel should not only be made up of developers but users and any one that wants to be able to submit ideas to make the service better and like/upvote or dislike/downvote the items.
Just some thoughts and ideas as I finish up my first round of coffee and get a couple of the first Technology articles posted for the day.
— Demolition Man