Facebook starts looking for click-bait so you don’t have to

Today we’re announcing some improvements to News Feed to help people find the posts and links from publishers that are most interesting and relevant, and to continue to weed out stories that people frequently tell us are spammy and that they don’t want to see. We’re making two updates, the first to reduce click-baiting headlines, and the second to help people see links shared on Facebook in the best format.

Click-Baiting Headlines

“Click-baiting” is when a publisher posts a link with a headline that encourages people to click to see more, without telling them much information about what they will see. Posts like these tend to get a lot of clicks, which means that these posts get shown to more people, and get shown higher up in News Feed.

However, when we asked people in an initial survey what type of content they preferred to see in their News Feeds, 80% of the time people preferred headlines that helped them decide if they wanted to read the full article before they had to click through.

Over time, stories with “click-bait” headlines can drown out content from friends and Pages that people really care about.

So how do we determine what looks like click-bait?

One way is to look at how long people spend reading an article away from Facebook. If people click on an article and spend time reading it, it suggests they clicked through to something valuable. If they click through to a link and then come straight back to Facebook, it suggests that they didn’t find something that they wanted. With this update we will start taking into account whether people tend to spend time away from Facebook after clicking a link, or whether they tend to come straight back to News Feed when we rank stories with links in them.

Another factor we will use to try and show fewer of these types of stories is to look at the ratio of people clicking on the content compared to people discussing and sharing it with their friends. If a lot of people click on the link, but relatively few people click Like, or comment on the story when they return to Facebook, this also suggests that people didn’t click through to something that was valuable to them.

Sharing links in posts

Our second update relates to sharing links in posts. When people share a link on Facebook it often appears in News Feed with a large picture, a headline and some text that gives context on the link:

News Feed FYI Click-baiting 2

Sometimes publishers share links in status updates or in the text caption above photos:

We’ve found that people often prefer to click on links that are displayed in the link format (which appears when you paste a link while drafting a post), rather than links that are buried in photo captions. The link format shows some additional information associated with the link, such as the beginning of the article, which makes it easier for someone to decide if they want to click through. This format also makes it easier for someone to click through on mobile devices, which have a smaller screen.

With this update, we will prioritize showing links in the link-format, and show fewer links shared in captions or status updates.

The best way to share a link after these updates will be to use the link format. In our studies, these posts have received twice as many clicks compared to links embedded in photo captions. In general, we recommend that you use the story type that best fits the message that you want to tell – whether that’s a status, photo, link or video.

Will this affect my Page?

A small set of publishers who are frequently posting links with click-bait headlines that many people don’t spend time reading after they click through may see their distribution decrease in the next few months. We’re making these changes to ensure that click-bait content does not drown out the things that people really want to see on Facebook.




Source : Facebook  ,  slashgear

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Does Facebook think users are dumb? “Satire” tag added to Onion articles [Updated]

Facebook is already an unbearable enough place as of late, at least in my case. Awful national and international news stories continue to appear in my personal feed alongside friends' amateur political commentary and personal quibbles, and that mix makes the occasional ray of satirical, hilarious sunshine from off-kilter sites like The Onion welcome. Sadly, Facebook has begun trying to ruin even these fun articles by appending their titles with a "satire" tag.

The major catch to this auto-tagging is that it only appears in a "related articles" box. Here's how it works: If a friend posts an Onion link to his or her Facebook feed, click on it for a laugh. Once you're done at The Onion and come back to your desktop or laptop browser, Facebook will have generated three related articles in a box directly below whatever you'd clicked on. In the case of an Onion link, that box will usually contain at least one article from the same site, only that article's headline will begin with the word "satire" in brackets. As of press time, we were able to duplicate this result on three different computers from different accounts, one of which is shown above.

We can only assume this was implemented as a reaction to users believing that Onion links are nonfiction reports (you can lose hours flipping through Literally Unbelievable, a site that catalogs such boneheaded moments), but we're not sure what compelled Facebook to go so far as to assert editorial control. Maybe the company still feels bad about how users reacted to its intentional News Feed manipulation from 2012.

What's more confusing is this limited implementation, which itself takes a while to explain. Original posts on friends' feeds and The Onion's official Facebook page don't come with a tag. If users save the article to a read-later list, the tag will vanish as well. And other satiric sites, particularly The Onion's newest sibling site, Buzzfeed-spoof Clickhole, are immune to the tag.

We reached out to Facebook to find out how long this practice has been in effect, whether we should expect to see it spread further across the site, and if any other sites fall under the "satire" tag umbrella. The company's PR team responded by asking us for screengrabs of the "satire" tag, but we've received no further response since then. We've also reached out to The Onion for a statement, but mostly because we can't wait to laugh at the article it prepares in response.

Update: A Facebook representative issued the following statement to Ars Technica: "We are running a small test which shows the text '[Satire]' in front of links to satirical articles in the related articles unit in News Feed. This is because we received feedback that people wanted a clearer way to distinguish satirical articles from others in these units." That test has been ongoing for over a month, and while we were told other satirical sites' links have received the same tags, we were not given a list of those sites. Our question about whether the tag would ever appear in other places on Facebook remained unanswered.





Source : arstechnica.com

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Facebook in Talks with Hollywood on ‘Oculus Experiences’

The Oculus Rift virtual reality headset’s first target market might have been video games—an obvious area of interest for new parent company Facebook. But it may soon go Hollywood too.

In recent weeks, Facebook representatives have been meeting with executives at all the major film studios as well as with individual directors about creating content specifically for the Rift headset, according to four people with knowledge of the conversations.

Among the ideas discussed would be to eventually get filmmakers and major media companies to develop “Oculus experiences” that could act as a companion to feature films. Eventually, full-length movies could be released directly to the device, two of the people say.





Source : theinformation.com

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What Happened to the Facebook Phone? Not Very Much, It Seems

Facebook has long wanted to be a major part of how you use your smartphone. Now, it looks as if the company has all but abandoned one of its major strategies to do so.

The company has disbanded the team of engineers originally assigned to work on Facebook Home, its custom-made mobile software for Android devices, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.

Released with much fanfare last year, Home was the result of the social giant’s multi-year effort to more deeply integrate Facebook features into an Android smartphone. After downloading and installing the software, for example, Home made it faster to view Facebook photos and send messages to friends directly from the home screen of the phone without needing to rely on Facebook’s popular mobile app to do so.

In effect, the Home software transformed a smartphone into a Facebook phone.

Shortly after it was released, Home ran into snags. Early adopters rated the software mediocre at best. And six months after the introduction, Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, said the software was hardly the hit he wanted it to be.

“I definitely think Home is slower in rolling out than I would have hoped,” Mr. Zuckerberg said in an interview at a tech conference last year.

The Facebook Home software, which is still available for download in the Google Play app marketplace, has not been updated since January. Facebook declined to comment.

While the company has not formally retired the software, Home’s failure to catch on is an embarrassing misstep for Facebook, which spent years trying to create a home-grown version of a Facebook phone as consumers moved en masse from desktop computers to Internet-connected mobile devices.

“It wasn’t the right product at the right time for their customers,” said Brian Blau, a research director and analyst for the Gartner Group. “Facebook always thought they could turn things around, but they haven’t for whatever reason.”

Recently, Facebook has shifted to a multi-app strategy, emphasizing other mobile offerings like Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger as popular stand-alone additions to accompany its main app.

It has also shifted resources. For instance, Joey Flynn, who was the lead designer for Facebook Home, left the project to design and launch Slingshot, an app similar to disappearing photo sharing service Snapchat. Other former Home team members, like product director Adam Mosseri, have gone on to focus more on other mobile projects.

The company has also incorporated some of Home’s more popular features, like “Chat Heads,” into the Facebook for Android app.

Facebook typically isn’t afraid to kill under-performing apps — as it recently did with its Poke and Camera offerings — and Home isn’t dead quite yet.

But don’t hold your breath waiting for an update.





Source: The New York Times

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Facebook Trending brings popular topics to light, rolling out now

Following the inclusion of hashtags, Facebook began testing a Trending box during the late summer last year, showing popular topics in the upper corner of one's account much in the same way the aforementioned microblogging site does. Fast-forward a handful of months, and Facebook has now begun rolling the new feature out in certain (yet unspecified) countries, while mobile users will have to keep waiting as testing is still underway.

The idea behind Trending is simple, and could be handy for those who want to see the bigger social picture rather than live in the bubble of their friend's list. Trending items, which are topics popular in the moment, whether recent events, news, or something else entirely, are listed in a small box in the top-right corner of one's main page -- not quite in the News Feed, but close enough.

Not all will be seeing the same trending topics, however, with the list -- which is slight in nature with only a handful of topics -- being personalized for each user. Some topics displayed with on Facebook-as-a-whole trends, but others will be trends within topics you're interested in, as determined by your past Facebook activity, likes, and other applicable settings.

With each trending topic comes a small blurb that explains what the topic is about, and clicking it will then pull up posts related to the topic, making the social network altogether Twitter-esque. If you're not seeing the box yet, hang tight -- Facebook hasn't said which regions are getting it, and when it will roll out to others, nor when it'll be showing up on mobile.










SOURCE: Facebook Newsroom

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Facebook slapped with lawsuit over ads reportedly displaying false endorsements

Facebook has been hit with another lawsuit this month, this one by a user who states the social network falsely showed that he "Liked" USA Today when, in fact, he never had. Such an advertisement appeared to the people on his friends list, showing them an endorsement from him that he states he never performed. The user is seeking financial compensation for this action, as well as compensation for all other users who experienced the same phenomenon.

Facebook user Anthony Ditirro has filed a class-action lawsuit against Facebook in a San Jose court for displaying his endorsement of a publication he claims to have never visited or "Liked," in the actionable sense of the word. Though, according to the lawsuit, Ditirro has nothing against USA Today, it is also not something he has endorsed and so he takes umbrage with the falsely-generated "Like" on the advertisement.

The false use of his endorsement, according to the class-action lawsuit, runs afoul of various federal and state-level privacy and related rights, and the $750 in damages comes by precedent of a California law allowing for such a figure in the event a personal image is used in the manner specified without the owner's permission. As mentioned, this isn't the first privacy-related lawsuit the social network has received in recent weeks.

During the last days of December, two Facebook users filed a lawsuit against the social network under claims that it reads the contents of private messages that contain a link to a third-party, doing so to mine data for advertisers and marketers. That claim -- which Facebook has called "without merit" -- is said to be in violation of the Electronics Communications Privacy Act and related California laws. In that instance, the plaintiffs are seeking $10,000 in damages for all users who allegedly fell prey to these claimed privacy violations.






SOURCE: GigaOm

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'Facebook' hit with lawsuit for reportedly breaching messages privacy

In a complaint filed late last month, two Facebook users filed a lawsuit against the social network, claiming it scans the contents of private messages and performs activities branching off this that ultimately violate various California laws and the Electronics Communications Privacy Act. Facebook has denied the claims, saying they are "without merit."

According to the lawsuit, Facebook scans through the content contained within its users' private messages, the purpose of which is to use the culled data for advertisement purposes -- the information is reportedly shared with both marketers and advertisers. Specifically, it is said that messages created using a link to a third-party website causes Facebook to scan not only the message's content, but also follow the link and ultimately create a "profile" of the user's Internet activity.

The lawsuit's plaintiffs are hoping to gain a class-action lawsuit that encompasses all Facebook users that have been on either the receiving or the sending end of a private message on the social network within the last two years -- the stipulation being that they contained a Web link. Up to $10,000 in damages for each user is being sought, as well as requiring Facebook to halt the activity.

As mentioned, Facebook has called the allegations baseless, but further statement from the social network isn't available. If the class-action lawsuit goes through, this would be the latest in a long line of privacy concerns raised regarding Facebook. Back in August 2013, the company began laying out a variety of rule and policy changes that were taking place, among them being a particular emphasis on its Data Use Policy. The rewrite aimed to, among other things, "highlight how we use the information we receive to show you ads that we hope you find relevant and interesting."







SOURCE: Bloomberg

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Social Media Update 2013

Some 73% of online adults now use a social networking site of some kind. Facebook is the dominant social networking platform in the number of users, but a striking number of users are now diversifying onto other platforms. Some 42% of online adults now use multiple social networking sites. In addition, Instagram users are nearly as likely as Facebook users to check in to the site on a daily basis. These are among the key findings on social networking site usage and adoption from a new survey from the Pew Research Center’s Internet Project.

About the Survey
The results in this report are based on data from telephone interviews conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International from August 7 to September 16, 2013, among a sample of 1,801 adults, age 18 and older.  Telephone interviews were conducted in English and Spanish by landline (901) and cell phone (900, including 482 without a landline phone). For results based on the total sample, one can say with 95% confidence that the error attributable to sampling is plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.  For results based on Internet users (n=1,445), the margin of sampling error is plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.




SOURCE: Pew Internet

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'Facebook' dead and buried to teens, research finds

Facebook is 'dead and buried' to older teenagers, an extensive European study has found, as the key age group moves on to Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp and Snapchat.

Researching the Facebook use of 16-18 year olds in eight EU countries, the Global Social Media Impact Study found that as parents and older users saturate Facebook, its younger users are shifting to alternative platforms.

"Facebook is not just on the slide - it is basically dead and buried," wrote Daniel Miller, lead anthropologist on the research team, who is professor of material culture of University College London.

"Mostly they feel embarrassed to even be associated with it. Where once parents worried about their children joining Facebook, the children now say it is their family that insists they stay there to post about their lives."

Teens do not care that alternative services are less functional and sophisticated, and they also unconcerned about how information about them is being used commercially or as part of surveillance practice by the security services, the research found.

"What appears to be the most seminal moment in a young person’s decision to leave Facebook was surely that dreaded day your mum sends you a friend request," wrote Miller.

"It is nothing new that young people care about style and status in relation to their peers, and Facebook is simply not cool anymore."

In part of the study's research with Italian Facebook users, 40% of users had never changed their privacy settings and 80% said they "were not concerned or did not care" if their personal data was available and accessed, either by an organisation or an individual.

Information that people choose to publish on Facebook has generally been through a psychological filtering process, researchers found - unlike conversations, photos and video shared through more private tools such as Skype, or on mobile apps.

"Most individuals try to present themselves online the way they think society is expecting them to," wrote contributing anthropologist Razvan Nicolescu on Thursday.

"It seems that social media works not towards change – of society, notions of individuality and connectedness, and so on – but rather as a conservative force that tends to strengthen the conventional social relations and to reify society as Italians enjoy and recognise it.

"The normativity of the online presence seems to be just one expression of this process."



SOURCE: The Guardian

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Facebook 'Dislike' thumbs-down finally here, but only in Messenger

Mobile messaging stickers are hot stuff right now, and Facebook is riffing on the trend with a new set of stickers that create some new poses for its iconic Like button hand. According to AllFacebook, the pack was created a few months ago during a hackathon.

I can definitely see myself getting plenty of use out of the thumbs-down sticker. Just don’t go too crazy texting, or you’ll have to reply with a sore thumb.

You can find the set as a free download in the Sticker Store on the Messenger app.


SOURCE: The Next Web

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Google, Microsoft, Apple & more demand government surveillance reform

Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, and other big names in tech have joined forces to protest government surveillance worldwide, calling for “Global Government Surveillance Reform” to better balance keeping citizens safe while also preserving their privacy. The group, which also includes AOL, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Yahoo, sets out five principles for transparency, oversight, accountability, and respect, penning a collective letter to President Obama and the US Congress in which they allege the balance of power has tipped too far away from the people and too much toward the stat

According to the eight firms, while they recognize that governments have a responsibility to protect citizens, they nonetheless believe that it’s time to rework the current laws which no longer address the digital age. Instead, they must be “rule-bound, narrowly tailored, transparent, and subject to oversight” in order to permit privacy and free expression.

The five guiding principles the companies set out echo and expand on those concepts. For instance, governments must be constrained in what user-information they collect, it’s argued, with “sensible limitations” on how much disclosure they can force out of service providers. Google and others have been vocal in recent demands for permission to reveal how many national security requests they receive each year.

Bulk data collection – potentially including the sort of huge location tracking the NSA is believed to be undertaking – is also name-checked, as is the need for a “clear legal framework” in which the right to protest disclosure is supported. Such laws should be set up in such a way that “the courts are accountable to an informed citizenry” it’s suggested.

Meanwhile, there’s also a request that governments be more open-minded about where data is stored – not requiring it to be within a country’s borders, for instance – and for countries to work together on better, more transparent sharing of information between each other.

Whether the pleading for reform will fall on deaf ears remains to be seen, but it’s clear that none of the key tech industry players is keen to go quietly along with increasing surveillance and government intrusion. Google has accelerated plans to encrypt all Drive data as a result, while Microsoft is similarly strengthening its security. The Obama government is yet to comment on the open letter.




SOURCE: slashgear

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Facebook developers experiment with 'sympathy' button

Facebook’s “Like” button could be getting' another overhaul. The company nixed' the ubiquitous thumbs-up symbol, starting with a rollout' at that began a month ago. Now it could be getting a more emotionally' complex character in the guise of a “sympathy” button.

A Facebook engineer' this week told the Huffington Post that some of the engineers' at the social media giant were working' on a “sympathize” button. The button could rely' on a “mood” drop-down list when users' post statuses. If the indicated mood is “sad”, for example, the “like” button would' turn into a “sympathize” button.

Friends could then automatically show sympathy by clicking it. The sympathy count would show up just as the like count shows up currently. This would remove' the pesky need to type a sad-face emoticon or, heaven forbid, actual words of support' found deep within the hearts' of the average user’s few hundred closest friends.

No timeline for the 'rollout of a “sympathize” button was announced. However, it was tested. One of Facebook’s engineers has already tried it. The results were witnessed' at a Facebook hackathon' that occurred earlier this year.



SOURCE: Huffington Post

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Zuckerberg introduces Internet.org partnership, wants to connect the world

Facebook‘s founder Mark Zuckerberg has introduced Internet.org, a partnership that spans the globe with a goal of connecting the entire world to the Internet. The collective encompasses many big name members, among them being Samsung, Nokia, and Opera, all of whom will work together to connect the two-thirds of the world that don’t have access to the Internet.

Presently, a tad over a third of the world’s population is connected the Internet, a number that comes in at 2.7 billion. That leaves another two-thirds without connection, with the reasons for this varying based on location and such. The rate of Internet adoption is said to be less than 9-percent per year, a number those behind Internet.org hope to see increase as a result of their efforts.

Said Zuckerberg: “Everything Facebook has done has been about giving all people around the world the power to connect. There are huge barriers in developing countries to connecting and joining the knowledge economy. Internet.org brings together a global partnership that will work to overcome these challenges, including making internet access available to those who cannot currently afford it.”

Under the initiative, members will work together to develop technologies – and their adoption – that make it cheaper for individuals to connect to the Internet while reducing the cost of data delivery. Among this effort will be the development of higher-quality smartphones that come with a smaller price tag, and partnerships to expand access in what Facebook calls areas that are lacking.

The technologies being development will also focus on more efficient use of data, decreasing the amount that apps and such use to help keep over all data use – and thusly costs – down. This will include things like cache systems and compression tools. And finally, the members will work towards creating and sustaining business models that facilitate Internet access.





SOURCE: Facebook Newsroom

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